Hi Dr,<br><br>I think it is worth knowing what is happening - it may look to be out of place but it is still important that is why AR kindly shared with us. Sorry.<br>Yassin <br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 21/05/07,
<b class="gmail_sendername">Dr Paulos Nyirenda</b> <<a href="mailto:paulos@sdnp.org.mw">paulos@sdnp.org.mw</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>Pardom me BUT what is this doing on this list? Regards, Paulos<br><br>On 20 May 2007 at 13:51, Dr Yassin Mshana wrote:<br><br>><br>> Thank you AR for sharing the article.<br>><br>> It is true and the most scarring thing is, is there a capacity
<br>> (anyhow) to make the Governments give the required attention their<br>> universities? The role of the diaspora in obvious now. The Diaspora<br>> is the 5th Region of Africa and can help out - every little help
<br>> helps.<br>><br>> Cheers<br>><br>> Yassin<br>><br>> On 20/05/07, Anne-Rachel Inne <<a href="mailto:anne-rachel.inne@icann.org">anne-rachel.inne@icann.org</a>> wrote:<br>> The New York Times
<br>><br>> May 20, 2007<br>> Africa's Storied Colleges, Jammed and Crumbling<br>> By LYDIA POLGREEN<br>><br>> DAKAR, Senegal, May 19 - Thiany Dior usually rises before dawn,<br>> tiptoeing carefully among thin foam mats laid out on the floor as she
<br>> leaves the cramped dormitory room she shares with half a dozen other<br>> women. It was built for two.<br>><br>> In the vast auditorium at the law school at Cheikh Anta Diop<br>> University,
<br>> she secures a seat two rows from the front, two hours before class. If<br>> she sat too far back, she would not hear the professor's lecture over<br>> the two tinny speakers, and would be more likely to join the 70
<br>> percent<br>> who fail their first- or second-year exams at the university.<br>><br>> Those who arrive later perch on cinderblocks in the aisles, or strain<br>> to<br>> hear from the gallery above. By the time class starts, 2,000 young
<br>> bodies crowd the room in a muffled din of shuffling paper, throat<br>> clearing and jostling. Outside, dozens of students, early arrivals for<br>> the next class, mill about noisily.<br>><br>
> "I cannot say really we are all learning, but we are trying," said Ms.<br>> Dior. "We are too many students."<br>><br>> Africa's best universities, the grand institutions that educated a
<br>> revolutionary generation of nation builders and statesmen, doctors and<br>> engineers, writers and intellectuals, are collapsing. It is partly a<br>> self-inflicted crisis of mismanagement and neglect, but it is also a
<br>> result of international development policies that for decades have<br>> favored basic education over higher learning even as a population<br>> explosion propels more young people than ever toward the already
<br>> strained institutions.<br>><br>> The decrepitude is forcing the best and brightest from countries<br>> across<br>> Africa to seek their education and fortunes abroad and depriving<br>> dozens
<br>> of nations of the homegrown expertise that could lift millions out of<br>> poverty.<br>><br>> The Commission for Africa, a British government research organization,<br>> said in a 2005 report that African universities were in a "state of
<br>> crisis" and were failing to produce the professionals desperately<br>> needed<br>> to develop the poorest continent. Far from being a tool of social<br>> mobility, the repository of a nation's hopes for the future, Africa's
<br>> universities have instead become warehouses for a generation of young<br>> people for whom society has little use and who can expect to be just<br>> as<br>> poor as their uneducated parents.
<br>><br>> "Without universities there is no hope of progress, but they have been<br>> allowed to crumble," said Penda Mbow, a historian and labor activist<br>> at<br>> Cheikh Anta Diop who has struggled to improve conditions for students
<br>> and professors. "We are throwing away a whole generation."<br>><br>> As a result, universities across Africa have become hotbeds of<br>> discontent, occupying a dangerous place at the intersection of
<br>> politics<br>> and crime. In Ivory Coast, student union leaders played a large role<br>> in<br>> stirring up xenophobia that led to civil war. In Nigeria, elite<br>> schools<br>> have been overrun by violent criminal gangs. Those gangs have hired
<br>> themselves out to politicians, contributing to the deterioration of<br>> the<br>> electoral process there.<br>><br>> In Senegal, the university has been racked repeatedly by sometimes<br>
> violent strikes by students seeking improvements in their living<br>> conditions and increases in the tiny stipends for living expenses.<br>> Students have refused to attend classes and set up burning barricades
<br>> on<br>> a central avenue that runs past the university.<br>><br>> In the early days, postcolonial Africa had few institutions as<br>> venerable<br>> and fully developed as its universities. The University of Ibadan in
<br>> southwest Nigeria, the intellectual home of the Nobel Prize-winning<br>> writer Wole Soyinka, was regarded in 1960 as one of the best<br>> universities in the British Commonwealth. Makerere University in
<br>> Uganda<br>> was considered the Harvard of Africa, and it trained a whole<br>> generation<br>> of postcolonial leaders, including Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.<br>><br>> And in Senegal, Cheikh Anta Diop, then known as the University of
<br>> Dakar,<br>> drew students from across francophone Africa and transformed them into<br>> doctors, engineers and lawyers whose credentials were considered equal<br>> to those of their French counterparts.
<br>><br>> The experience of students like Ms. Dior could not be further from<br>> that<br>> of men like Ousmane Camara, a former president of Senegal's highest<br>> court, who attended the same law school in the late 1950s. A cracked,
<br>> yellowing photograph from 1957 shows the entire law school student<br>> body<br>> in a single frame, fewer than 100 students.<br>><br>> "We lived in spacious rooms, with more than enough for each to have
<br>> its<br>> own," Mr. Camara said. "We had a minibus that drove us to and from<br>> class."<br>><br>> The young men in the photo went on to do great things: Mr. Camara's
<br>> classmate Abdou Diouf became Senegal's second president. Others became<br>> top government officials and businessmen, shaping the nation's<br>> fortunes<br>> after it won independence from France in 1960.
<br>><br>> Today, nearly 60,000 students are crammed on a campus with just 5,000<br>> dormitory beds. Renting a room in Dakar is so expensive that students<br>> pack themselves into tiny rooms by the half dozen.
<br>><br>> Firmin Manga, a third-year English student from the southern region of<br>> Casamance, was lucky enough to be assigned a cramped, airless single<br>> room. But six of his friends were not so fortunate, so he invited them
<br>> to share. In a space barely wide enough for two twin beds, the young<br>> men<br>> have squeezed four foam mattresses, which serve as beds, desks, dining<br>> tables and couches. Their clothes were neatly packed into a single
<br>> closet, a dozen pairs of shoes carefully balanced on a ledge above the<br>> doorway.<br>><br>> "We have to live like this," Mr. Manga said, perched on his bed late<br>> one<br>
> night.<br>><br>> "Two will sleep here," he said, placing his palm on a ratty scrap of<br>> foam. "Two over there, and two over there. Then one more mattress is<br>> underneath my bed."
<br>><br>> Once the last mattress is laid out there is no floor space left. Mr.<br>> Manga works on his thesis, a treatise comparing the grammar of his<br>> native Dioula language with English, early in the morning, before any
<br>> else wakes up.<br>><br>> "That is my quiet time alone," he said.<br>><br>> The graffiti-scarred dormitories, crisscrossed by clotheslines, look<br>> more like housing projects for the poor than rooms for the country's
<br>> brightest youths. A $12 million renovation of the library modernized<br>> what had been a musty, crowded outpost on campus into a modern<br>> building<br>> with Internet access. But technology does not help with its most basic
<br>> problem: it still only has 1,700 chairs. Students study in stairwells<br>> and sprawled in corners.<br>><br>> In a chemistry lab in the science department, students take turns<br>> carrying out basic experiments with broken beakers and pipettes.
<br>><br>> Equally frustrated are the professors, many of whom could pursue<br>> careers<br>> abroad but choose to remain in Senegal. Alphonse Tiné, a professor of<br>> chemistry, said he struggled to balance his research with the demands
<br>> of<br>> teaching thousands of students.<br>><br>> "If I went abroad maybe I would have more salary, better equipment,<br>> fewer students," Mr. Tiné said. "I studied on a government scholarship
<br>> abroad, so I felt I owed my country to stay. But it is very hard."<br>><br>> Mr. Tiné, 58, plans to stay in Senegal for the rest of his career. But<br>> many educated Africans will not. The International Organization for
<br>> Migration estimates that Africa has lost 20,000 educated professionals<br>> every year since 1990. Those who can afford it send their children<br>> abroad for college. Some of those who cannot push their sons and even
<br>> their daughters to migrate, often illegally.<br>><br>> The disarray of Africa's universities did not happen by chance. In the<br>> 1960s, universities were seen as the incubator of the vanguard that
<br>> would drive development in the young nations of newly liberated<br>> Africa,<br>> and postcolonial governments spent lavishly on campuses, research<br>> facilities, scholarships and salaries for academics.
<br>><br>> But corruption and mismanagement led to the economic collapses that<br>> swept much of Africa in the 1970s, and universities were among the<br>> first<br>> institutions to suffer. As idealistic postcolonial governments gave
<br>> way<br>> to more cynical and authoritarian ones, universities, with their<br>> academic freedoms, democratic tendencies and elitist airs, became a<br>> nuisance.<br>><br>> When the World Bank and International Monetary Fund came to bail out
<br>> African governments with their economic reforms - a bitter cocktail<br>> that<br>> included currency devaluation, opening of markets and privatization -<br>> higher education was usually low on the list of priorities. Fighting
<br>> poverty required basic skills and literacy, not doctoral students. In<br>> the mid-1980s nearly a fifth of World Bank's education spending<br>> worldwide went to higher education. A decade later, it had dwindled to
<br>> just 7 percent.<br>><br>> Meanwhile, welcome money flooded into primary and secondary education.<br>> But it set up a time bomb: as more young people got a basic education,<br>> more wanted to go to college. In 1984, just half of Senegal's children
<br>> went to primary school, but 20 years later more than 90 percent do.<br>><br>> And more of those children have gone on to high school: Africa has the<br>> world's highest growth rate of high school attendance. Abdou Salam
<br>> Sall,<br>> rector of the Cheikh Anta Diop, said 9,000 students earned a<br>> baccalaureate in Senegal in 2000, entitling them to university<br>> admission. By 2006 there were more than twice that. The university
<br>> cannot handle the influx. Its budget is $32 million, less than $600<br>> per<br>> student. That money must also maintain a 430-acre campus, pay salaries<br>> and finance research.<br>>
<br>> Even those lucky enough to graduate will have difficulty finding a job<br>> in their struggling economies. As few as one third of African<br>> university<br>> graduates find work, according to the Association of African
<br>> Universities.<br>><br>> Governments and donors in some countries are starting to spend more on<br>> higher education. The World Bank chipped in for Cheikh Anta Diop's<br>> library renovation, and a coalition of foundations called the
<br>> Partnership for Higher Education in Africa has pledged $200 million to<br>> help African universities over the next five years.<br>><br>> Fatou Kiné Camara, a law professor and the daughter of Mr. Camara, the
<br>> former judge, said she felt the frustration of her students as she<br>> struggled to teach a class of thousands. When the students cannot hear<br>> her over the loudspeaker, they hurl vulgar insults, a taboo in a
<br>> society<br>> that prides itself on decorum and respect for elders.<br>><br>> "They are angry, and I cannot blame them," she said. "The country has<br>> nothing to offer them, and their education is worthless. It doesn't
<br>> prepare them for anything."<br>><br>> Attempts to reduce the student population by admitting fewer students<br>> are seen as political suicide - student unions play a big role in<br>> elections, and the country's leaders are fearful of widespread
<br>> discontent among the educated youth. Senegal has created new<br>> universities in provincial capitals like Saint Louis and Ziguinchor,<br>> but<br>> few students want to attend them because they are new and untested,
<br>> and<br>> the government has not forced the issue.<br>><br>> "They fear us because we are the young, and the future belongs to us,"<br>> said Babacar Sohkna, a student union leader. "But where is our future?
<br>> We are just waiting here for poverty."<br>><br>> Elizabeth Dickinson contributed reporting.<br>> Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company<br>><br>><br>> _______________________________________________
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