PROCEEDINGS OF THE DAAD - NAPRECA FOLLOW-UP CONFERENCE

Abstract

Educational institutions devoted to religious, philosophical and/or medical areas existed in Africa, particularly in such countries as Egypt, Ethiopia, Mali and Morocco, many centuries ago. In Ethiopia, early education was associated with the church although such education was not devoted entirely to religion alone. For example one of the church schools in central Ethiopia, called Boru Meda Selassie, is claimed to have had about 500 students 100 years ago divided among four professorial chairs of which only one was theology. The establishment of the first institutions of Western style tertiary education in Africa took place during the colonial era. These institutions had religious affiliations and were intended to produce personnel for performing minor to middle level administrative tasks. The 1960s mark the decade when many African countries became independent and began establishing universities. In the early part of the 1970s many countries were doing well economically. During the 1980s and early 1990s, many more universities were opened and their number grew from six in 1960 to over 100 at the present time. The current total numbr of students enrolled is in the region of half a million. It is possible to list quite a lot of achievements o f African universities but one also observes that they are facing severe crisis at present. The learning, living and working conditions in African universities have deteriorated greatly. The prevailing poor economies, less democratic environments and frequent clashes between students and governments leading to closures and disruption of programs have all contributed to the present crisis faced by African universities. An important challenge for African universities is understanding the reasons for the crisis and why efforts made so far and funds obtained have not brought about effective solutions. This report deals with four main issues: 1. Universities in Africa should reduce their cultural, economic, intellectual and even psychological over-dependence on the North. They should also develop more effective interactive mechanisms with society. An aspect of dependency on external culture stems from the fact that the medium of instruction, the languages used in discussing scientific and technical issues and in disseminating research results are borrowed European languages. It is essential that universities pay greater attention than they have hitherto in studying the local languages and cultures and traditions associated with them. This is not to suggest that European languages be completely abandoned but that universities should gradually develop ways for cultural blending by enriching local languages to enhance their utility for dealing with scientific and technical subjects. In doing so they would acquire useful experiences, generate unique and relevant knowledge and enhance the social relevance of the universities in the African community. It is in fact surprising that the importance of offering these languages in our universities has not been recognized, whereas in the UK and USA schools of oriental studies, Semitic languages, etc are flourishing.