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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Towards Academic Freedom for Africa in the 21st Century
Author:Mama, AminaISNI
Year:2006
Periodical:Journal of Higher Education in Africa (ISSN 0851-7762)
Volume:4
Issue:3
Pages:1-32
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic term:Africa
Subjects:higher education
academic freedom
Education and Oral Traditions
Development and Technology
education
Economic assistance
Public universities and colleges
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/43658308
Abstract:This paper reviews the ways in which the higher education landscape in Africa has changed during the last decade as a result of the ongoing regional crisis and the changing perspectives on African higher education articulated within the international development arena. It argues that, if the higher education crisis of the 1980s and 1990s was the result of financial conditionalities imposed through structural adjustment, then the ensuing decade has seen a global policy shift that has profoundly changed the conditions under which academic work is carried out. Particular attention is paid to the manner in which the changing, economically driven constraints on academic freedom, institutional autonomy and conditions of service in higher educational institutions are mediated by other social conditions such as gender inequalities, the HIV/AIDS crisis, the effects of long-term brain drain and the manner in which local capacity is diverted into survivalism. The author argues that higher education reforms threaten to undermine the material base for academic life by emphasizing privatization and cost recovery in contexts where poverty is a major feature of life. Exaggerated concerns with 'efficiency' and 'excellence' lead to increased regulation of scholarly output, rendering academic freedom vulnerable to formulaic measures of performance that may be insensitive to the work of African academics. The paper concludes by recommending a programme of activities designed to re-affirm the public stake in higher education, strengthen and diversify independent scholarly work and encourage African governments to adopt policies that will strengthen the tertiary sector and ensure an enabling environment for intellectual development and freedom. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]
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