Plenary II - E. Aryeetey

The Trials of Higher Education Funding in Africa: Effect on University Governance, Academic Programmes and Research

Ernest Aryeetey

Outline

• Introduction: The Challenges facing African Universities

• Recent trends and approaches in funding higher education

• Some recent responses to the crisis: international capacity-building initiatives

• The responses from African public universities• Case study: University of Ghana

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1. Introduction: The Challenges facing African Universities

The main critical challenges facing African universities can be summarised as follows:

• Dwindling public funding for academic resources and research and increasing reliance on development partners and donors for funding

• Situation contributes to a growing crisis in academic leadership and a growing inability of many institutions to set their own research agendas (Kamola, 2011; Manuh, 2005; Peltzer and Bless, 1989; WHO, 2004)

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Challenges (contd)

• Political stifling of bold scholarship and academic freedom. In some countries, the content of classroom teaching in areas of regional politics and development, has been subjected to political interference and has led to institutional closure

• Poor remuneration of university lecturers and researchers contributes to academics leaving their institutions for lucrative non-academic positions or to academic positions in other African countries, Europe and North America

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Challenges (contd)

• Disenfranchised community of academics with low levels of research productivity, low engagement in global academic discourse and trends, and increased over-dependence on donors and consultancies for financial security

• Africa produces an insignificant percentage of scientific publications in a broad range of disciplines (see Table 1).

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Table 1. Papers in Science Citation Index by Region: 1981-2000

Region 1981 1990 2000

Americas 158,108 199,347 230,060

Europe 163,471 203,598 264,829

Asia 45,906 62,217 123,572

Africa 5,305 6,539 8,311

Source: Mohamedbhai (2009)

2. Recent Trends and Approaches in Financing Higher Education• The funding of higher education has experienced

many significant changes throughout the world in the last three decades.

• The changes in how higher education is financed

are mainly responses to increases in higher education costs without a corresponding increase in government revenues in many countries

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Recent approaches in financing (contd)• Significant increases in enrolment at universities

affected the cost per student, attributable to rapid population growth of young people in the university-going age, especially in developing countries.

• The need to improve the technology available to universities for teaching and doing research has added significantly to the cost of universities. Higher education institutions require new equipment in order to be competitive.

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Table: 2- Student Enrolment for Ghanaian Public Universities from 2000/01-2012/11 Academic Year

INSTITUTIONS 2000/01 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11

UNIVERSITY OF GHANA 12972 15332 17893 23898 27414 28482 28236 28920 34199 36092 37257

UNIV. OF SCIE. & TECH. 10333 11258 11976 13391 16146 19923 22560 23866 23659 24116 25784

UNIV. OF CAPE COAST 8959 9822 11637 12735 13541 17090 16972 16835 16404 15492 16117

UNIV.COLL.OF EDUCATION 7702 8153 9909 9915 11496 12462 13087 15378 16323 15464 14645

UNIV. FOR DEV. STUDIES 707 996 1796 2765 3948 5264 6629 7891 10712 15023 20064

UNIV. OF MINES AND TECH. 623 684 872 863 857 961 1083 1251 1453 1585

TOTAL 40673 46184 53895 63576 73408 84078 88445 93973 102548 107640 115452

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Figure: 1- Student Enrolment for Public Universities from 2000/01-2011/12 Academic Year

2000/01

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2009/10

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Figure: 3- Budget Allocation to Ghanaian Higher Education from 2004-2011

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 -

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100,000,000

150,000,000

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Table: 3- Budget Allocation to Higher Education from 2004-2011

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011PERSONAL EMOLUMENT 42,838,019 51,040,166 79,730,583 95,163,880 100,000,000 130,000,000 255,484,411 259,863,860 ADMINISTRATION 3,201,161 7,052,000 11,600,000 15,251,000 16,104,521 8,800,000 12,800,000 12,000,000 SERVICES 2,369,900 1,662,243 15,800,000 1,798,900 1,500,000 7,300,000 5,000,000 4,000,000 INVESTMENT 286,400 300,000 200,000 440,000 358,000 747,432 746,589 473,295 TOTAL 48,695,480 60,054,409 93,110,583 112,653,780 117,962,521 146,847,432 274,031,000 276,337,155

BUDGET ALLOCATION FIGURES FROM 2004-2011

Recent approaches in financing (contd)

• There has been a push towards cost recovery by introducing tuition fees in countries where higher education used to be provided for free

• As fees have been introduced, the need to consider financing options for students has grown. Student loan schemes are becoming commonplace in many countries.

• It is now expected that public universities will generate financial resources by selling their services, mainly consultancy and physical products and patents. But this is very difficult in most developing countries.

3. Recent responses: international capacity-building initiatives

• Capacity building and strengthening has become a dominant international response to the crisis of higher education in Africa, with European and American funders and universities spearheading initiatives for institutional and professional development (BA/ACU, 2009; Morley et al, 2009).

Recent responses: Capacity building (contd)

• Capacity building initiatives can be placed under three categories. – First, projects have sought to strengthen

institutional capacity in order to improve organisational, management and technical processes

– Second, projects have focused on postgraduate training, with particular emphasis on PhD training, to address the professional and skills gap created by the brain drain in the 1970s and 1980s


– The final approach has been to develop research networks and centres of research excellence.• Research networks create important disciplinary

spaces for intellectual engagement, development and training (e.g. AERC, CODESRIA, UAPS). • Centres of research excellence focus on

interdisciplinary research development and implementation, especially in areas of developmental importance (e.g. African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC)).


• One of the best known initiatives at building capacity has been the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa.– The Partnership for Higher Education in Africa was

an unprecedented collaboration between seven major U.S. foundations to support African higher education institutions in building capacity and training the next generation of scholars, public servants and entrepreneurs


• Capacity building initiatives have had varied levels of success– Improving IT access for some universities, training new PhDs

who have assumed teaching and administrative positions in their departments, and establishing important regional spaces for scholarly engagement and development (BA/ACU, 2009).

• However challenges still exist– First, the investment in capacity building has not been equitable:

some countries have been multiple recipients of funding and support, while others have received little attention.

– Second, a number of schemes have faced critical challenges in implementation and sustainability

4. The Responses from African Public Universities

• In November 2008, UG hosted a University Leaders’ Forum to discuss African university challenges and to chart a way forward

• This and other meetings (Nairobi Report) led to three proposed solutions– Building institutional foundations, through improving

structures, systems and governance– Building “communities of research excellence”, rather

than “centres of excellence”

Responses from African public universities (contd)

– Investing in individuals, particularly early career academics through flexible PhD programmes , dedicated mentoring and progressive career structures

• The Nairobi Report outlines at least 6 factors essential for effective development of communities of research excellence• Emphasis on inter-institutional collaboration to simultaneously

build institutional capacity and link colleagues working across a number of centres within and outside of national borders


– Collaboration based on ‘specific disciplines or subject areas’ or ‘a particular theme or set of issues to bring together an interdisciplinary group’

– An organisational and management structure that manages the complex collaborative process, preferably located in one institution with experience and expertise in managing larger-scale research to manage funds on behalf of the community

– Local ownership to ensure sustainability; and also to build capacity in experience and expertise in managing larger-scale research

– Sharing responsibilities and tasks in relation to the community’s goals, ‘relieving the burden on any one centre or department’

– Prioritising issues of trust, openness and participation

Table 4. British funded centres and communities of excellence in Africa

Funders Countries/Partners Focus of centres or communities

DFID Ghana, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia Mental Health and Poverty

British Academy Algeria, Benin, Botswana(3), Burkina Faso,

Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia,

Senegal(2), South Africa (4), Uganda, Zimbabwe

Twelve research partnerships

covering 13 countries focusing on

various projects including

development intervention, health,

post-conflict peacebuilding and the

macroeconomics of employment and

poverty

Wellcome Trust Botswana, Chad, Democratic Republic of

Congo, Ghana (3), Ivory Coast (2), Kenya (3),

Malawi (2), Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria (2),

Rwanda (2), Senegal, SA(3), Sudan, Tanzania

(4), Uganda (3), Zambia (2), Zimbabwe

Seven consortia covering 18

countries focusing on various

projects including diseases of

poverty, environmental health and

postgraduate training

Note: Some countries have benefitted from multiple funding. Figures in brackets denote the number of funded research network/community a country has secured from one funder. Countries benefitting from more than one funded project from either one or multiple funders have greater potential for inter-institutional capacity building within national boundaries.


• A number of initiatives have been developed to train PhD level researchers and academics in universities across the region, including:– The Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) is a

collaboration between nine universities and four research institutions from West, East, Central, and Southern Africa and selected northern partners. Based in Kenya at the African Population Health Research Centre (APHRC), CARTA aims to train PhDs from universities across the region.

– Carnegie Next Generation of Academics in Africa Programme: funds Ghana and three other African countries, one main aim is to support existing faculty without PhDs to obtain their PhDs and build stronger long-term academic careers.

– Royal Society/Leverhulme: training basic scientists in Ghana, Tanzania and Ethiopia

Case Study University of Ghana: Dealing with Inadequate Funds

• There is growing competition from both public and private universities

• Need for cost-recovery and better management of resources

• Introduction of fee-paying by some students, less than 10% of enrolment

• Visitation panel advising on extensive governance and curricular reforms and research management

• Growing use of partnerships to enhance access to human and financial resources

• New PhD programmes are to be full fee paying and done in partnership with northern universities

University of Ghana (contd)

• Negotiations with government for block grants that allow universities to determine how best to use their resources: very problematic

• Use of PPP approach to develop new infrastructure

• Increasing borrowing of long term funds for equipment purchase and capital projects

• Increasing fund raising activities among alumni and private sector

West Africa Centre For Crop Improvement

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West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement

•Partners:•Cornell University’s Institute for Genomic Diversity•International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria

•PhD Plant Breeding•Individual UG faculty initiative–Joint curriculum development, teaching & supervision

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Convergence of Sciences PhD programme

• Collaboration between:• UG’s College of Agriculture & Consumer Sciences •Royal Tropical Institute, Netherlands•Wageningen University

•Inter-disciplinary training aimed at strengthening agricultural innovation systems •Soil quality, Crop diversity•Integrated pest & weed management

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Marine & Fisheries Sciences

•University of British Columbia• Staff/Student exchange & collaborative research

•Office of Naval Research of the US Navy•Collaborative research

•Oregon State University•Fisheries Management Training• Staff/Student exchange

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Signing International Agreements

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Hebei Institute, China University of Cape Town

Internationalizing Student Experience

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Conclusion

• Dwindling public financial resources have forced many universities to be a lot more creative in how they govern themselves, what programmes they run and what research they do

• They can do a lot more if governments gave them the needed space for creativity

Documents

Plenary II - E. Aryeetey