AAU Implications of GATS for higher education in Africa

READING NOTES

Association of African Universities (2004) The implications of WTO/GATS for higher education in Africa: proceedings of Accra workshop on GATS, 27^th–29^th April, 2004, Accra, Ghana. Accra: Association of African Universities.

Regional workshop in Accra in 2004, sponsored jointly by UNESCO, AAU, and the South Africa Council on Higher Education.

67 participants from 16 countries in Africa, plus the Middle east and Canada.

The Accra Declaration on GATS and the Internationalization of Higher Education in Africa:

The declaration is placed in the context of three prior documents:

(1) Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Article 26, paragraph 1 - which states that higher education would be available to all on the basis of merit;

(2) World Declaration on Higher Education (1998) – which connects higher education with human rights, sustainable development, democracy and peace, and which speaks of “true partnerships”;

(3) AAU Declaration on the African University in the Third Millennium (2001) – which encourages engagement in critical problem solving and knowledge production and application, for Africa’s problems and global issues.

NOTES

(1) African universities are still dealing with aftereffects of Structural Adjustment Policies that crippled government capacity to sustain institutions – including universities; African universities/governments are still lacking in sufficiently strong, nimble regulatory statutes and practices regarding licensure, accreditation, quality assurance, etc.

(2) internationalization and globalization of higher education is already well underway and African universities and governments have established regimes for themselves, but that as a continent-wide body, given past history, a fuller cooperative regime needs to be constructed.

DECLARES

(1) that higher education is a “PUBLIC MANDATE” – to meet social, economic and intellectual needs of Africa (first) while contributing to global knowledge creation and application.

(2) support for partnerships that are identifiably, mutually beneficial to all participating institutions – a push-back, perhaps, to the kind of review of partnerships to which Carrol and Samoff refer.

(3) support for national and regional efforts to strengthen regulatory regimes (as noted above), so that these may be in a position to truly support the “true partnerships” being sought.

(4) pursuit of real “engagement” with the issues (political, educational, and economic) of GATS – it is not stating agreement with these, but rather a stance of caution – watchfulness - until a fuller understanding comes clear as to what GATS means for higher education in Africa!!

RESOLVES

(1) to pursue greater availability of information about GATS is needed, along with more debate and discussion between stakeholders so as to increase understanding across the fullest swath of those impacted.

(2) to promote further research on cross-border provision of higher education so as to ensure quality