Livsey_capacity_paper-libre.pdf

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The colonial-era university: an experiment in capacity building

Timothy Livsey, Birkbeck, University of London

This paper has two goals. First, it considers the relationship between scientific capacity building,

usually seen as a partnership between developed and developing countries to increase the capability

of individuals and groups in the latter to discharge scientific and technical tasks, and social capacity

building, which increases idiiduals ad goups social and cultural prestige.1The paper suggests

that scientific capacity building can, and perhaps necessarily does, build social capacity. Scientific

capacity building has therefore not been a purely rationalist, technocratic process, but has been

bound up with the political, social and cultural histories of specific locations. Second, the last section

of the paper shows how conceptions of capacity change over time. From the 1930s to the 1960s,

there was broad agreement that African universities would build scientific capacity in ways that

benefitted Africans, but the 1960s and 1970s saw this consensus collapse, with deleteriousconsequences for scientific capacity.

The paper draws on my PhD research on the place of Nigerian universities in histories of

development and decolonisation, and recent work exploring the ways development has been a

negotiated, contested process by Monica van Beusekom, Joseph Hodge, and Julia Tischler.2This

paper brings these perspectives to bear on higher education. I am not a scientist, nor a historian of

science. Nevertheless, I hope that that this paper will contribute to our thinking about the ways in

which notions of scientific capacity have been constructed by historical actors. I would be pleased to

hear your comments, suggestions and criticisms on the thoughts presented here.

The first university in Nigeria was University College Ibadan, founded in 1948 under the auspices of

British authorities. It was one of a network of universities founded across the empire in the late

1940s that was partly the product of a new deelopetalist appoah to goeig the epie. As

independence in 1960 neared, Nigerian politicians started to plan new universities. Four were

founded between 1960 and 1963. Yet by the end of the 1960s, the excitement about the role of

universities in African development was fading fast.

Part 1: Nigerian conceptions of capacity

When University College Ibadan was founded in 1948, western forms of education were well

established in southern Nigeria. The importance of western education there pre-dated formal

colonial rule. Before the British annexation of Lagos in 1861, western educated Africans, many of

1O sietifi apait, see Ea Hais, Building scientific capacity in developing countries, EMBO Reports5/1

(2004), 7.2Monica M. van Beusekom, Negotiating Development: African Farmers and Colonial Experts at the Office du

Niger, 1920-1960 (Portsmouth, NH, 2002); Joseph M. Hodge, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of

Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Athens, 2007); Julia Tischler, Light and Power for a

Multiracial Nation: The Kariba Dam Scheme in the Central African Federation (Houndmills, 2013).


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them former slaves, had established themselves as an elite group. The Nigerian minister Rev.

Thomas Babington Macaulay founded the first grammar school in Lagos in 1859, before the

annexation.

The coming of colonial rule increased the importance of formal education. Literary education in

particular opened the way to prestigious jobs in government and European commercial firms. It

offeed a oute to estalishig ategoial eualit ith the oloises, though shaig siila

knowledge, qualifications and lifestyles.3Education to perceived foreign, and especially British,

standards formed a vital aspect of the identity of a small colonial-era southern Nigerian elite.

Education was valued more because it built social than scientific capacity. The importance of literary

education was reflected in the emphasis of teaching at the many secondary schools founded by

Nigerian communities.4

In 1934, the British colonial government established Yaba Higher College in Lagos. It was intended to

increase, economically, the scientific capacity of the colonial state, by training Nigerians for post as

assistants in the medical, education, and public works departments. Yaba students received a

diploma tenable only in Nigeria rather than a degree, ensuring that they remained in junior positions

within the colonial state and were paid less than colonial officials.

Nigerians did not welcome Yaba as building scientific capacity. Most commentaries argued that it

offeded eduated Nigeias aspiatios, giig the lesse ualifiatios ad salaies, thus not

creating the social capacity associated with literary education. A March 1934 rally attracted 545

people which, according to the Nigeria Daily Times, ejeted Yaa as pootig the isolatio of

Nigerian youths from the outside world and set[ing] up a false stadad of alues i the out.5

Nigerian members of the Legislative Council bombarded the colonial government with questions

about the status of Yaba qualifications, and it was petitioned to allow Yaba students to sit for full

degrees.6In colonial Nigeria, then, the social capacity built by literary education was often perceived

as more important to immediate elite political and social objectives than scientific capacity.

Part 2: UCI and hybrid conceptions of capacity

The planning of University College Ibadan saw educated Nigerian elites, British academics and

colonial officials produce a university development consensus. It grew out of the rancorous 1930s

debates about Yaba. Nigerian protests about Yaba were received sympathetically by a British

colonial establishment that increasingly linked its international reputation to colonial development.7

A review of colonial higher education in London led to the creation of the 1943-45 Elliot Commission

on Higher Education in West Africa, which created the blueprint for University College Ibadan.

3O ategoial eualit, see Richard Wilk, Home Cooking in the Global Village: Caribbean Food from

Buccaneers to Ecotourists (Oxford, 2006), 70.4J.F. Ade Ajai, The deelopet of seoda gaa shool eduatio i Nigeia, Journal of the Historical

Society of Nigeria 2/4 (1963), 519-23.5Nigerian Daily Times, 19 March 1934.

6See, for example Nigeria Gazette, 8 February 1934, 14 June 1934.

7See, for example Stephen Constantine, The Making of British Colonial Development Policy 1914-1940

(London, 1984), 228-32.


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Unusually for the time, the commission included three West African members (one, the headmaster

Rev Israel Ransome Kuti, was the father of the legendary Nigerian Afrobeat musician Fela Kuti),

although most members were British academics and politicians.8The Coissios 19 tou of

West Africa included well-attended public hearings, which allowed Nigerians to convey their

aspirations directly to the Commission. Debates about Yaba were invoked. The Yaba Ex-Students

Uio apaiged fo a uiesit ollege affiliated to a Bitish uiesit. The agued that the do

not want another West African University to confer local degrees, because they believe that this will

i tie eoe hat the all Aothe Yaa College Affai.9

The African Elliot Commission members actively intervened in deliberations to advance their vision

of a university embodying British standards. When the British biochemist H.J. Channon proposed

that students of a West African medical school should only receive a locally tenable diploma until it

was recognised by the British General Medical Council, for example, Ransome Kuti disagreed, writing

o! i the agi of his op of the daft.10

His objection was incorporated into the final report, showing how the Commission produced a

hybrid university blueprint that incorporated the concerns of a variety of West African and British

interests. For the Elliot Report, a West African university would build scientific capacity to deal with

local problems, like soil erosion and cocoa plant diseases, although the Report also ensured the

university would build social capacity.11

It would initially award internationally recognised University

of London degrees under a schee of speial elatios. The Report argued that university

education would enable African students to eale the to take thei plae i the old of leaig

of to-day as equals, in every sense of the word, capable of comradeship with their contemporaries in

any land, deserving and receiving, in their chosen fields, the confidence and support of their own

people.12

The Elliot Report thus incorporated both scientific and social capacity building agendas.

Part 3: UCI and capacity

University College Ibadan was founded in 1948 largely to the Elliot Commission blueprint. It taught

sciences and included a medical school. But it also taught the arts, awarded London degrees, and

was a consciously elite institution. Even when the university was housed in temporary huts, the

former edial studet Adafe Jaja ealled that he leaed the taditio of eig popel tued

out. We dessed ell although ot eessail eaig a tie o oat.13

When the university moved to

its new modernist campus in 1951, life became still grander. Former student Victoria Onafowokan

8The other West African members were K.A. Korsah, a Ghanaian lawyer, and E.H. Taylor-Cummings, a Sierra

Leonean doctor. The British members were Walter Elliot and Arthur Creech Jones (MPs), J.R. Dickinson (a

retired colonial officer), and Bernard Mouat Jones, James Duff, H.J. Channon, Margaret Read, Julian Huxley, Sir

Geoffrey Evans, Eveline Martin, and A.E. Truman (academics).9Southern Nigeria Defender, 3 January 1944.

10Fist Daft Chapte VI .d. [19], Kenneth Dike Library, University of Ibadan, Africana Collection, Kuti

Papers Box 24.11

Report of the Commission on Higher Education in West Africa, Cmd. 6655 (1945) (hereafter: Elliot Report), 2,

6-7.12

Elliot Report, 2.13

Bunmi Salako, Our UI(Lagos, 1990), 11.


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eeeed, the tasitio fo aak like pefas to suh ahitetual piees of eellee as

epeseted ou pide o ou suoudigs. We fitted spledidl ito a life of steads.14

Many Nigerians welcomed the contrast between the university and Yaba Higher College. The

Nigerian Tribuneogatulated Iadas fist piipal ith a editoial etitled Bao, D Mella,

hih oted that his os shie i old eaiatios.15The apus ipessed as ell. Only such

uildigs efit a geat atio, ote Chua Ajaegu-Mgbakor, a Lagos businessman, in the Daily

Times.16

When UCI was criticised, it was usually not because of its style of capacity building, but

because it was not doing more. There were objections to the low student numbers and limited

subjects taught, particularly the slow development in education and engineering.17

The emphasis on British standards that built social capacity could fit uneasily with scientific capacity

building. In medicine, for example, the scheme of special relations with London required a teaching

hospital operated to British standards, which disqualified existing Ibadan hospitals. UCI medical

students were sent to Britain for clinical training until 1957, when a huge new teaching hospital was

opened. It was excellent, but formidably expensive. The London medical degree was also poorly

suited to Nigeria in some ways. Difficult to pass, it lacked the emphasis on preventative medicine

and public health that would have been useful in Nigeria.18

There were similar problems in

engineering. Nigerian engineers belonged to British professional bodies. When these institutions

modified their policies due to changing British circumstances, the changes had to be replicated in

Nigeria regardless of their usefulness there.19

The construction of social and scientific capacity was

thus not necessarily complimentary.

Part 4: New Nigerian universities and capacity

Despite these problems, the university model represented by Ibadan proved tenacious. This could be

see as elated to a oloial sigatue of poe, ad Bitish istitutios udoutedl plaed a

important role in establishing norms in Nigeria.20

Many ambitious Nigerians actively demanded

these standards, however, further investing them with prestige. This posed problems when Nigerian

politicians started planning new universities in the 1950s. One of the best known is the University of

Nigeria, Nsukka, whose planning was led by Nnamdi Azikiwe.

Nsukka is often interpreted as offering a radical alternative to Ibadan. It was explicitly focused on

capacity building in science and technology, and included vocational studies that were not available

14Salako, Our UI, 46-7.

15Nigerian Tribune, 15 August 1952.

16Daily Times, 3 January 1953.

17On engineering see West African Pilot, 9 March 1948; Southern Nigeria Defender, 23 April 1949.

18Kenneth Mellanby, The Birth of Nigerias University(London, 1958), 164-5.

19I.C.M. Maxwell, Universities in Partnership: The Inter-University Council and the Growth of Higher Education

in Developing Countries, 1946-70 (Edinburgh, 1980), 29.20

Crawford Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven, 1994), 284.


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at Ibadan, including librarianship, architecture and fisheries.21

Nsukka was supposed to be less elitist.

Azikiwe had criticised student residence at Ibadan,telling the House of Representatives in 1954 that

thee as o itisi alue i estitig the studets of the uiesit to esidetial status. Ve

few modern universities of the world adopt this athe estitie ad ahai patie.22

Finally,

Nsukka sought assistance from the United States, whose land grant universities were perceived as

offeig a uiesit odel ette suited to a deelopig outs eeds tha Iadas i of

Oxbridge and London.

Despite the discourse of radicalism around Nsukka, it had many similarities to Ibadan. It taught arts

subjects. It was in fact, like Ibadan, a residential university, included a grandiose sports stadium, and

instituted practices like gown wearing, egadless of Azikies itiiss of UCI. Azikie had also

intended that Nsukka would be affiliated to the University of London, although the arrangement fell

through.23

Some Nigerians criticised Nsukka for its differences from Ibadan. )ik ats a Yak-style

uiesit at ut ates, the Daily Times reported, and the public response to Nsukka is characterised

by the historian Nduka Okaforas lukea, alost hostile.24

Azikies shee as geeted ith

suspicion partly of the importance Nigerian elites plaed o uiesities soial apait uildig

functions.

Neetheless, the disouse aoud Azikies pojet as i tue ith the iteatioal osesus

about universities in national development. A major 1962 UNESCO conference on the Development

of Higher Education in Africa, held in Madagascar, called for universities to emphasise scientific

capacity. It set a target for 60% of students to study science subjects, compared to 34% at the time

of the conference, and called for simpler buildings and lifestyles at African universities.25

Like the

Elliot Report fifteen years previously, however, the UNESCO conference still perceived universities as

crucial to scientific apait uildig, deeig the the ai istuets of atioal pogess.26

Azikies plas fo Nsukka unfolded in the context of this broad international consensus about

universities and scientific capacity building.

Part 5: The decline in euphoria about universities and capacity

The confidence at the UNESCO conference about the potential of African universities to build

scientific capacity and transform the continent turned out to be short-lived. An interlocking set of

21Easte Nigeia, Uiesit of Nigeia La Eugu, 19, 1-14; B.I.C. Ijoah, The origins and philosophy

of the uiesit, i E. Oiehia, C. Ike ad J.A. Ueh eds., The University of Nigeria 1960-85: An Experiment

in Higher Education(Nsukka, 1986), 4.22

Nigeria,House of Representatives Debates. Third Session, 13th

to 23rd

August 1954, 265.23

Ite-University Council Executive Committee Conference with Dr Azikiwe and the Eastern Nigeria Minister

of Eduatio, 1 Noee 19, The National Archive BW 90/603.24

Eric Ashby, Universities: British, Indian, African. A Study in the Ecology of Higher Education, with Mary

Anderson(London, 1966), 267-8; Nduka Okafor, The Development of Universities in Nigeria (London, 1971),

172.25

UNESCO, The Development of Higher Education in Africa: Report on the Conference on the Development of

Higher Education in Africa. Tananarive, 3-12 September 1962 (Paris, 1962) (Hereafter: UNESCO Report), 3426

UNESCO Report, 13.


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local, national and international crises saw the optimism about universities, scientific capacity and

national development come tumbling down in the 1960s and 1970s.

Nigerian universities were affected by crises connected to the destructive dynamics of postcolonial

politis, that sa state esoues as a atioal ake hih the politial patiescompeted to divide

in self-interested ways. This was manifested in factionalism at Nsukka and Ife universities between

staff supporting rival parties, and in ethno-political disputes at the University of Lagos that

culminated in a student stabbing the newly appointed vice chancellor in 1965.27

These problems in Nigeria were fed by the international confidence in universities as motors of

deelopet. High epetatios of uiesities tasfoatie poe poal eaeated the

Nigerian university crises, aisig the peeied stakes i politial ialies oe the otol of

universities. These heightened expectations gave way to growing doubts. The problems at Nigerian

universities seemed to fit into a global pattern of disenchantment with modernistic planned

deelopet, uiesities ad sietifi apait. This as the ea, fo eaple, of the eets of

1968, the Ronan Point disaster in Britain, and the formative years of post-modernist architecture.

Disenchantment with modernising postcolonial African elites, amongst Africans and western

governments, can be seen as a further facet of this moment.

At Ibadan doubts grew about the university. In the early 1970s Vice Chancellor T. Adeoye Lambo

came to see his university as ingrained with colonialism. He described it as su-colonial, ad

eplaied that the uiesit inherited a lot of things. I am talking now in terms of facilities. It is a

esidetial uiesit.28

Some Nigerian academics, like the historian E.A. Ayandele in 1973,

despaired of the Nigerian educated elite as, i his ods, a otle of touseed ad foked

ulesues ith a eee of este ultue.29

International donors too viewed developments at postcolonial Nigerian universities with unease.

The British and American government had hoped that their assistance to Nigerian universities would

help to educate modernising elites sympathetic to their interests. Instead, they worried that African

universities created a factionalised, corrupt elite that was a barrier to economic, political and indeed

scientific development. By the mid-1970s Britain and the United States were retooling their

development assistance to focus on rural development and basic level technology. The World Bank,

too, became disenchanted with the African university.30

Booming 1970s oil revenues allowed the

Nigerian state to found more universities, although links with western academe waned. When oil

prices declined in the later 1970s, and the World Bank structural adjustment programme was

imposed in the 1980s, Nigerian universities suffered badly, shorn of domestic and foreign funding.

27On Nsukka see John Hanson, Education, Nsukka: A Study in Institution Building Among the Modern Ibo, with

Magnus Adiele, Pius Igboko and Charles Okpala(East Lancing, 1968), 24-5, 30. On Ife see Vincent

Chukwuemeka Ike, University Development in Africa (Ibadan, 1976), 191-4. On Lagos see Saburi O. Biobaku,

When We Were No Longer Young (Ibadan, 1999), 113.28

Quoted in John D. Hargreaves, The idea of a oloial uiesit,African Affairs 72/286 (1973), 26.29

E.A. Ayandele, The Educated Elite in the Nigerian Society(Ibadan, 1974), 2.30

See, for example James S. Coleman, University Development in the Third World: The Rockefeller Foundation

Experience, with David Court (Oxford, 1993), 311-22.


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The scientific capacity that had been built through substantial Nigerian and foreign investment

deteriorated as it was no longer seen as a productive, respectable route to broader developmental

goals.

Conclusion

Today the World Bank is once again optimistic about the place of African universities in economic

development and scientific capacity building. Scientific capacity building is closely enmeshed with

social capacity building, and can have often overlooked political and social implications. Conceptions

of scientific capacity are also historically contingent, changing over time through the interaction of

local, national and transnational dynamics. Perhaps the chief problem with scientific capacity

building is that conceptions of efficacious, socially just routes towards such development invariably

change, meaning that the achievement of scientific capacity often seems tantalisingly out of reach.

This opens the temptation of abandoning the capacity which has been laboriously built, as with the1970s and 1980s disinvestment in Nigerian universities, because it no longer fits with the latest

visions of progress.

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Livsey_capacity_paper-libre.pdf