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01.09.2009 Feature Article

Our book-long Universities

Our book-long Universities
01.09.2009 LISTEN

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade once said that Africa has too many PhD's and too few technicians. It was a very profound comment. For the most part, PhD's think and talk a lot while technicians do stuff. Of course, this is a broad generalization. While there are significant exceptions, this is for the most part true. In 2007, the ranking of nearly 8 thousand Universities around the world had the University of Ghana and the Kwame Nkrumah University placing 5,702 and 6,703 respectively!

Within Africa, they ranked 43rd and 63rd respectively. In other words, even on our own continent, none of our Universities ranked in the top forty. Ah! Osagyefo and Koo Busia would be turning in their graves.

Of course, a University is not judged only by its academic ranking. In addition to academics, our Universities must be judged by the following:

- How relevant they are to our national development. - Their ability to foster an atmosphere permissive of intellectual discourse. - Their impact on the political process. - Their culture of service to the community. This list is not exhaustive but it covers most of the essentials.

Let me begin with the first one. Our Universities deny admission to many qualified applicants while at the same time producing thousands of unemployed graduates each year. Indeed, a few days ago, the Vice-Chancellor of KNUST revealed that only a third of their applicants were offered places for this year. This problem has existed for some time and been worsening. In 2001, the Kufuor administration correctly recognized that we had a problem after many years of neglect by previous governments. Unfortunately, the new government assumed that we had a problem of volume instead of problems of volume and quality. In the last 8 years, we doubled the enrollment in public Universities from about 44 thousand to 88 thousand while increasing the number of Polytechnic students by 50%. While this gave more opportunities to qualified students to pursue higher education, it also doubled the number of unemployed graduates. Around our campuses, the effects of unplanned expansions are everywhere. There are too many Medical students on hospital wards and too few attending physicians to give them the unique attention that has helped to produce excellent Doctors like Prof. Ayittey, Dr. Prempeh and Drs. Amoateng and Laing. On the campus of the University of Cape Coast, hundreds of students pack into halls to hear lectures with some standing outside. Due to too many students per room, sanitation and cleanliness on our campuses leaves much to be desired. In many student residences, due to unreliable water supply, there is a permanent stench that hangs in the air.

Today, half-a-century after independence, we still have an economy based on primary products, a nation where agriculture science graduates sit in offices even as we import food and tooth-picks while our fertile lands lie fallow. Where are the inventions that elsewhere have transformed economies? In defence of the Universities and researchers working with them, one can cite the cars “ADOM” and “BOAFO”, pozolanni cement, the machine for pounding fufu and the one for removing and crushing palm nut fruits, and a machine for pumping water amongst others. It can be argued that with support from our society, all these would have transformed our society and created wealth and jobs.

Next, let us look at the fostering of intellectual discourse. There was a time on our campuses when even some students were considered budding experts in their own right. Students like Kwame Mfodwo, Duah Adonteng and Ali Masmadi Jehu-Appiah readily come to mind on this front. A few years ago, I was forcefully reminded of how far our Universities have moved from the culture of intellectual discourse. The University community was atwitter about the involvement of the son of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana in the leakage of exam questions. The question was whether the Vice-Chancellor should be made to resign following the conduct of his adult son. There were persuasive arguments on both sides and I had expected the University community to grapple with this seriously. To my disappointment, all that most in the academic community cared about was the politics of what had happened. Either they were trying to get him because he was an NPP member or they were trying to protect him because they were NPP. In most parts of the world, the opinions of University professors are avidly sought and very respected. In the United States for instance there is hardly ever a discussion on the economy without a respected Economics professor being interviewed or of political and campaign issues without a Political Science professor on the panel. In Ghana, too often, we do not hear from the Professoriate of our universities. Instead, hours and hours of airtime are filled by people who know little more than the person in the street. That is unfortunate.

Third, as far as the impact of the Universities on the political process is concerned, it has been a mixed bag. The Universities have tended more to be loud centres of opposition rather than calm and sober centres of leadership. Generations of students, including my generation, referred to by many as “the greatest generation” have defied dictatorships in a manner that has done our country proud. From the lone student who mourned Danquah at Commonwealth Hall to the thousands who poured on to the streets repeatedly, the Universities have done their part. They have given muscle to protests rather than brains to solve our problems. But even as channels of popular protests, there have been regrettable errors. Of these none can compare to 1979 when students, under the misguided leadership of Marxist-Leninist leaders, encouraged the AFRC to “let the blood flow” during the AFRC executions. It is ironic that despite the number of future leaders who have passed through their walls, our Universities have so little influence on policy amongst the governing classes.

The fourth measure is one of the most important. Service--- to community, to country, to mankind.

It is obvious that while University education should give one a chance to serve, too many of us see university education as a ticket, out of poverty and into the top ranks of our society. As a result many who are poor escape poverty through university education and never look back. Many move from rural areas to University in urban areas and never go back to help lift their communities. Elsewhere around the world, Universities are vital centres of energy for their communities. A medical student was one half of the Best and Bunting team that discovered insulin in Toronto. It was a group of University of Chicago Law students who discovered the evidence that forced Illinois to abandon the death penalty. This was followed by many other states. Even in our history, it was a student, Kwame Nkrumah who responded to history's call and came home to join and later lead the fight for independence.

How can our Universities get better?
First, we need reforms that will produce more of the graduates we need rather than just graduates.

We need more doctors, pharmacists, engineers and technicians. When there is a shortage of doctors and nurses from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, it does not make sense that we use our meager resources to produce unemployable graduates. To achieve this, our universities must become more entrepreneurial. Our departments of Agriculture must own commercial farms; our pharmacy departments must have partnerships with the Food and Drugs Board and have pharmaceutical plants that generate income.

We must have University Boards that are practical, entrepreneurial and grounded in our country's life experience. Let our governments join our businesses and Universities in partnership to create Business Incubation centres that will translate ideas developed on our campuses into businesses and solve business problems.

Next, let us form think tanks that will develop solutions to our national problems and set out to sell these ideas to our decision-makers.

To do so, our Universities must not leave political activism to just students. Responsible activism must suffuse every corner of our Universities and they must make our Universities places where all views are fully aired and developed for the betterment of our country.

Finally, our universities must teach students the ethics and culture of service, to their communities, their country and mankind. Let our law students fan out across our country, to be advocates for the so many who languish in our prisons because they have no counsel. Let our undergraduates fan out across our country every year, to help rural children with their homework and make them better pupils so that our BECE grades will improve.

Let our medical students go to all corners of our country to care for the sick because even as students, they know far more than the many that pose as healers to our people and only harm them. Let our Universities teach more “KNOW-HOW” and less “KNOW-WHAT”. In the end it is the “know-how” more than the “know-what” that will get us there.

Let us move forward, together.

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