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| Anglophone Africa paves the way in higher education
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By Mamadou Amat
PANA Staff Writer
Dakar, Senegal (PANA) -
One of the characteristics of higher
education in Africa is that it is facing greater difficulties
in Francophone countries - where campuses are overcrowded and too
much politicised - than in Anglophone states where the system
seems to be running smoothly, less problematic and quieter.
According to specialists of the issue, the problem facing
higher education is in fact much more acute in Francophone
Africa, where it translates into campus closures, university
crises resulting from strikes staged by students and/or
lecturers...
This is, however, the case at the University of Cocody, in
Cote d'Ivoire, and also at that of Niamey in Niger which, in
five years, is likely to experience three wasted years, including
two consecutive ones.
The basic reasons for these crises are to be related,
according to the same analysts, to social assistance policies in
favour of students, but above all, to the access to the
university which is generally open to all those who pass their
baccalaureate exam (school-leaving certificate taken at 17-18),
even if hosting facilities are virtually left as they were in the
beginning.
"This leads to a situation whereby students found themselves
in learning conditions much more difficult than in Anglophones
universities where there is a selection to enter university", Mr
Juma Shabani (Burundi), a Higher Education Specialist at the
UNESCO Office in Dakar, said.
And current trends show that this increase in the numbers of
students is in fact growing and that, as a result, problems are
going to be more acute, Shabani adds, thus putting his finger on
social assistance which has it that, in varying degrees,
scholarships are granted virtually to all those who manage to get
to the university.
"However, bearing in mind the quick increase of numbers,
there will be a need to increase each year the budget allocated
to scholarships and social services, which is not possible
because in some countries, the limits were reached," which leads
to crises, students pressing for scholarships, social services
increasingly out of the reach of academic authorities...
With grievances being mainly of a material order, it is in
fact very rare to see strikes related to the quality or relevance
of education, this being added to the fact that Francophone
university campuses are too much politicised, with trade union
movements with radical tendencies or sections of political
parties within university campuses.
In Anglophone Africa, it is much simpler. First, because
there is a selection process on entering university, which
ensures at the same time that the number of students generally
corresponds to the hosting capacity of facilities. As a result,
there is generally enough teaching aids and lecturers to ensure
tutorials for the students.
Another achievement in Anglophone Africa is that in several
countries, social services no longer exist. They were privatised,
while scholarships have virtually disappeared. It is the system
of loans that is now used, or else financial assistance is
provided to particularly brilliant students but who are faced
with difficulties to raise the money at the level of their
families.
Today, 70 percent of boarders at Makerere University in
Uganda are paying for all costs pertaining to their training and
if the trends are maintained, in five years' time, all students
will end up paying themselves their tuition fees, which explains
the lack of scholarships.
"If they have to pay for their studies, no wonder they will
do all they can to avoid strikes, but also they are going to ask
for quality training", Shabani indicated.
Another Anglophone practice that could be experimented with
by the Francophones is the introduction of the preparatory year
before university entrance in a bid to give the students a level
that corresponds with the profile required for higher education.
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| Dakar - 08/06/2001 |
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