LOCAL PRODUCTION OF RESEARCHBASED KNOWLEDGE AT AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES: Status and Future Challenges

1
LOCAL PRODUCTION OF RESEARCH-BASED KNOWLEDGE AT
AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES Status and Future Challenges

• Dr. Edward K. Kirumira
• Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences
• Makerere University

2
The Context

• The macro-economic development program for
  poverty alleviation
• The development paradigms financial, economic
  or political argument for the slow national
  development.
• The socio-cultural African structures

3
Context (contn..)

• conflicting political, cultural, ethical,
  environmental and economic values in Africa
• The heterogeneous nature of the African
  Universities populations

4
The Changing African Universities Mandates

• Transformation and response to Science and
  Technology for national development
• Informing the education system right from the
  Primary school level
• Appreciation of the place of evidence-base policy
  formulation, program implantation, monitoring and
  evaluation esp. on the part of the nation state

5
Univ. mandate (contn..)

• combine an African identity with the
  internationalization of ourselves and the
  products we send off
• connectedness to the local, regional and
  international community
• review curricula, organization and growth paths

6
The Research base in African Universities

• core functions of teaching, research and outreach
  the three-legged stool
• evidence that informs the broader national
  policies and concerns should to the extent
  possible be locally produced

7
Makerere Experience

• mother-child transmission of HIV from 30 to 15
• Audit in Maternity Care
• Media for micro propagation of bananas
• Integrated Pest Management Method for groundnuts
  and cowpeas
• VCT and succession-planning

8
The Question

• do we as nationals, policy makers and program
  implementers recognize these examples as
  significant demonstration of local knowledge
  production?

9
The African Univ. Researcher

• The exclusion nature with which local production
  of knowledge is pursued
• The percentage involvement in research by
  academic members of staff continues to be rather
  low (gt30)
• Few over-subscribed researchers
• Research a by-the-way (making ends meet elsewhere)

10
Knowledge production and human resource training

• The post-independence response.
• Research is usually nested within the Schools of
  Graduate Studies
• The teach-to-survive syndrome

11
The AIDS Pandemic

• With mortality due to HIV AIDS, the
  stability of human resource that sustainable
  local production of knowledge is being denied of
  African Universities

12
Future Challenges

• Balancing privatization and professionalism
• research for knowledge production versus research
  for human resource training
• buying into research funding
• demand for knowledge production and knowledge
  consumption

13
Challenges (contn)

• International exposure and competitiveness of
  African Universities researchers
• Encouraging multi-disciplinary research
• intellectual assets/property management