Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Nkulu, Kiluba (2005) Serving the Common Good: A {ostcolonial African Perspective on Higher Education.

Nkulu, Kiluba (2005) Serving the Common Good: A {ostcolonial African Perspective on Higher Education. New York: Peter Lang

As the title suggest, this is a dialogue of sorts between the ideas of liberal and utilitarian education – with some combination of the two arising as Nkulu’s “service to the common good.”

Introduction – pages 1-4

p. 2: “Nyerere hoped that a combination of analytical reflection with action and communal values would help solve problems in society and foster human-centered development. Nyerere wished university education to inculcate a socialist attitude, meaning a spirit of corporate solidarity, sharing, social responsibility, and solving problems together.”

Nkulu bemoans the focus on individualism and (presumably, self-supporting, go-it-alone) entrepreneurship as a focus of higher education in more recent decades.

p. 2: “Critics in the West have underscored the complicity of institutions of higher education with big corporations in their destruction of the world’s social and ecological environment. Criticisms from Africans have focused on the perpetuation of colonial attitudes of superiority and dominance by educational institutions.”

p. 2: “. . . Nyerere hoped for a higher education model that would cultivate and nurture a spirit of critical inquiry, social justice, and commitment to serve the community, and not perpetuate the colonial mindset of seeking disproportional power and privileges for selfish interest.”

Chapter One – Classic Trends in Educational Theory – pages 5-26

A review of Plato’s ideas on education – especially the focus of learned people on doing “what is best for the community”. Education for good citizenship.

John Amos Comenius (1592-1670) – Moravian bishop. Leading education reformer during the brutal Thirty Years War in central Europe. Educated persons as “pan-sophists” – as people capable of knowing all things as they become most fully human. Encyclopedic knowledge as a goal, one that links humanity as sharing a common destiny. Human power of reasoning as a faculty developed through education, and held as a moral underpinning of society.

John Locke – first of the Enlightenment philosophers – 17th century – as industry and mercantile trade blossomed, other spheres of power, aside from hereditary land ownership, came into play. The social order shifted Locke’s ideas on education sought to acknowledge the place of power of the new classes. Education for social utility.

Jean-Jacque Rousseau – 18th century individuals are born free, but enslaved by societal environments in which they find themselves. He espoused universal, individual human rights. Rejects Locke-ian social stratification and advocates equality across classes and experience. Education for social cohesion. p. 11: “Rousseau defines the educated person as the one who thinks freely and s willing to engage in a social contract with others.”

Studium Generalethe Latin term for a guild/corporation of “people engaged in higher learning” (12).

John Henry Cardinal Newman – 1801-1890 – Church of England minister who converted to Catholicism, but found “deficiencies” in Catholic education. Founded the Catholic University of Ireland – 1850s – just after the potato famine was at its height, and as cholera was sweeping Ireland. Newman held liberal ideas about higher education – focused on producing the “gentle-person,” someone capable of reasoning through wide ranging issues. Newman is Locke-ian in regard to focus on the gentle-person, but anti-Locke-ian in his favoring of education for more than utility, for a “higher purpose.” Education as a pursuit of knowledge for its own worthy, worthwhile sake. The refined intellect as the final aim of higher education.

Jose Ortega y Gasset – 1883-1955 – Spanish - Jesuit-educated in Spain and Germany – higher education as an effort to produce “cultured persons.” Ortega y Gasset sees a difference between a learned person and a cultured person. A learned person can be someone with great knowledge of broad subject areas, but if that person is not working on behalf of society, then the knowledge is incomplete. A cultured person applies the knowledge to an awareness of society, its needs, etc. A cultured person knows the issues at play in society, a learned person only knows his subject. Ortega y Gasset sought to combine the Spanish profession-oriented university model with the German research-oriented model and produce a more liberal environment, one that would in turn produce cultured persons who would work to benefit society.

Pages 16-17 – a group of African scholars are discussed – the most particular issue concerns separation of African universities from African social and cultural issues (Shivji; Mamdani; Mazrui). African universities produce Gasset-ian learned persons, rather than cultured persons. African universities are entirely too rooted in Western traditions of universities – more German (per Ortega y Gasset) or research-oriented, separating universities from society. European languages as media of instruction downplay importance of African culture, so no wonder universities are separated from African culture and society.

Pages 17-18 – a group of Western critics (Bowers, Stanley, and Barnett) of universities as elitist, corporatist, capitalist institutions that have led the moral decay of Western (and other) societies in favor of corporate agendas of control and power. Adoption of market practices as a path to enslavement to capitalist notions of society. Higher education is no longer useful to society or liberal for its own self. It is entirely beholden to a particular, capitalist form of economic engagement.

Nkulu ends the chapter with several pages on John Dewey’s pragmatismpractical knowledge as an integration of liberal knowledge (knowledge for its own sake) with “useful” knowledge (skills acquisition).

SEE PAGE 86 FOR APPLICATION OF THESE PHISLOPHIES TO Nyerere

Chapter Two – Educational Models in Pre-Colonial Africa – pages 27-44

Indigenous education in Africa as a “lifelong learning experience” – new knowledge for use in society was always to be pursued, and this new knowledge would flow from “useful” to “cultural” as societies changed over time.

Initiation rites – didactic and social functions – taught about the self and the self-in-society. These also began the process of detailing for individuals which roles they would be suited for in their society – healer; rainmaker; priest; etc. John Mbiti is cited and quoted at length here. So, too, are Audrey Richards and Victor Turner. Culwick and Culwick are cited for their work among the Wabena of Tanzania, who taught girls and boys their place in society via initiation/bush schools. Boys, especially, were taught a range of subjects, and a curriculum was understood to exist – religion, law, custom, tribal history, genealogies, manners and etiquette, military tactics, medicine, handicrafts, agriculture, animal husbandry, etc. were all topics in the Wabena educational milieu. Individual students focused on areas of their own strength and skill.

p. 32: “In summary, African indigenous education was practical and responsive to needs in society. It emphasized the teaching of values as a way of integrating individuals within their collectivity, their immediate social and cultural environment. Indigenous African education is of interest as it informs a local model which emphasized the acquisition of productive skills along social and cultural values for the molding of civic-minded persons.”

More to Higher Education models in pre-colonial Africa:

CHRISTIAN (and pre-Christian)

Catechetical schools – second century C.E. - Alexandria (Egypt) as a first order example – Clement of Alexandria as a particular early scholar. Trained leaders for the early Catholic church. Origen was a 3rd century leader of catechetical schools, and founded such a school in Caesarea before being martyred.

But Alexandria was a center of learning well before the Christian era. The Library at Alexandria is well-known to have drawn scholars from the Mediterranean for centuries prior to Christ’s arrival.

ISLAMIC

Al-Azhar University (Egypt) was founded in the late 10th century C.E. (970 C.E.) as a means to educated the people of the region about Fatimid Islam (a Shia form that saw Mohammed’s daughter Fatima as the rightful line of descent for Islam). With time, Al-Azhar, which began as a mosque, expanded its offerings beyond religion, “evolving into a cultural and intellectual center” (36). Within decades, scholars from throughout the Muslim world were traveling to Al-Azhar.

13th century C.E. Leo Africanus (and later writers) attest to the development of centers of higher learning in Fez, Morocco. J.F. Ajayi attests that evidence shows that Karawiyyin Mosque, which would become Karawiyyin University in Fez, was actually founded in 859 C.E., thus well before Al-Azhar University in Egypt. Arabs, Berbers, Jews, and Christians were all found in Fez, at the university.

p. 37: “Historical records show that the more prosperous an Islamic state was, the more its wealth was spent on furnishing residential quarters, mosques, and madrasas, thus attracting scholars.”

Ibn Khaldun – famed historian of North Africa – is noted to have lived at Karawiyyin University for several years in the 14th century.

Sankore University (University of Timbuktu) – oldest center of higher learning in sub-Saharan Africa. Founded at the nexus of multiple trade routes, in a location known to Berbers, Soninke, Songhai, Arabs, Malinke, Fulani, Tuareg, et al peoples. Founded as early as 1100 C.E. (per Henry Louis Gates), and supported by mansa Musa with major infusions of capital in the early 14th century.

p. 40: “Cisoko records that “theology, Islamic law, history, grammar, logic, rhetoric, ethics, and astrology” were the basic disciplines taught at Sankore. Saad and Ajayi mention geography,. The interpretation of the Koran, mathematics, medicine, science, and traditions as other subjects that were also taught. The nature of the subject matter reflects what may have been an emphasis on the pursuit of liberal education.”

p. 40: “. . . Sankore [University] was a studium generale which attracted students and faculty from abroad. Interestingly, Sankore was well endowed from local patrons and did not depend on external funding to operate. It trained elitist leaders and enjoyed academic freedom.”

p. 41: “Failure to impact higher education in Africa south of the Sahara may have been, in part, related to the use of Arabic as the language of instruction (because it was the language of the Koran), making Sankore similar to colonial universities which used foreign languages to instruct Africans. That higher education at Sankore did not integrate Islamic humanism with indigenous African cultural values may be another reason for its failure to impact higher learning in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. But intellectual clerics from Sankore might have contributed to the rise of basic education in West Africa. Koranic schools (one type of basic education) were started in West Africa before colonial penetration, Kano in Nigeria being one example.”

Ibn Rushd (a.k.a. Averroes) – a well-known scholar of the 12th century – traveled from (Moor-dominated) Spain south to Fez. Translated Aristotle’s metaphysics into Arabic.

Ibn Tufayl – 12th century scholar also traveled from Spain to Fez.

In concluding, Nkulu notes that the indigenous form of education was practical, being responsive to local interests and cultures, whereas the higher education model of Al-Azhar, Karawiyyin, and Sankore universities was liberal, extra-parochial, and elitist (illiberal).

Chapter Three – The Impact of Colonization on Education in Africa – pages 45-62

Nkulu quotes Albert Sarraut (France’s Minister for Colonial Affairs in the early 1920s), who states explicitly that France had an obligation to educate Africans for France’s own “evident economic, administrative, military, and political interests.” (45)

Western-style education for the purposes of controlling – funneling – the masses into economic activity that supports the colonial power(s). Other imperatives – Christian evangelization; the “civilizing mission”; etc.

Nkulu goes on to discuss Ngugi (The River Between) and Achebe (Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease).

Fourah Bay College (Sierra Leone; est. 1827) – founded by the British outfit, Church Missionary Society (CMS). CMS sought to offer higher education to Africans so as to get the help of educated Africans in missionary work throughout Africa. British colonial authorities had objections to this, as they saw Africans as incapable of being thoroughly educated – they saw industrial schools as preferable for Africans.

Fourah Bay College became affiliated with the University of Durham (UK) in 1876, and independent from 1959, only to become a constituent college of the University of Sierra Leone in 1966. – the only institution of higher learning in West Africa from which a student could graduate with a degree” (p. 48) until the 1940s! Humanities, theology, elementary science, and teacher training were the foci at Fourah Bay College until the 1950s, when economics, engineering and other subjects were added.

Liberia College (est. 1862) – trained statesmen and clergymen to serve the independent republic. Long supported by the Phelps-Stokes Fund. Edward Blyden taught at Liberia College.

p. 49: “Blyden saw missionary education as substituting “ecclesiastical dogmatism” for liberal education, thus enslaving the mind. Blyden’s call for the creation of a West African university in 1872 reflects an interest in awakening critical consciousness among Africans. Blyden believed the West African University would contribute knowledge for accelerating “the moral and spiritual progress” of black people. He wanted an institution to generate what he called the intellectual and moral state in the community which will give it not only a congenial atmosphere in which to thrive, but food and nutriment for its enlargement and growth; and out of this will naturally come the material condition of its success.” (long ending quote comes from Hollis R. Lynch, Black Spokesmen, 1971, page 225)

Gordon Memorial College (Sudan; est. 1898) – at first a vocational school, possibly established to counter the spread of Islam, then a secondary school, before becoming a college by the 1920s. Became the University College of Khartoum in 1951.

British Advisory Committee on Education – colonial era sop to missionary groups seeking to educate Africans who could then proselytize and bring in recruits to the various mission churches.

Makerere University (Uganda, est. 1921), created as a trade school for carpenters, by 1922 it had added para-medicine, veterinary science, land surveying, and agriculture courses. Full secondary school by 1933, University College by 1949, affiliated in this latter role with the University of London.

1933 – Currie Report – of the aforementioned Advisory Committee – requested several colleges be upgraded to universities.

1937 – De La Warr Report – emphasized the need to teach courses in African Studies, including African languages, anthropology, African law, economics, indigenous governance, etc.

1943 – Channon Report – proposed accelerating the establishment of higher education throughout the colonies, with first degrees to be awarded in Britain.

1945 – Asquith Report – integrated all previous reports and outlined how colonies could connect with the University of London. The colonies would partner with Britain on developing higher education opportunities for a limited group of colonized Africans.

p. 52: “[the] Asquith [Report] proposed that the University of London should “adapt its syllabuses and curricula to the specific needs of different colonial colleges . . . send out examiners . . . allow the staffs of the overseas colleges to take part in examining.” The report became the final policy paper of Britain in colonies throughout the colonial period.”

Yaba Higher College (Nigeria, est. 1932) – later moved to Ibadan (1948) – originally offered courses in vocational training, agriculture, forestry, medicine, veterinary science, surveying, civil/mechanical engineering, and teacher training for secondary schools.

Achimota (Ghana, est. 1924) – a comprehensive (primary through tertiary) school. Became the University College of Ghana at Legon in 1948. It was created to offer education at a level of the best to be found in Britain, but to do so with African conditions in mind, and to African purposes. This proved a contradictory mission – how sincere were the founding British officials – how much of the “best to be found in Britain” actually made it into planning for Achimota?

p. 53: “The affiliation of Makerere, Yaba, and Achimota with the University of London could be seen as diminishing the degree of partnership with local circumstances, thus giving the impression that these African institutions were a reproduction of British higher education.”

Roma College (Lesotho, est. 1945)

Trinity College (Ethiopia, est. 1949), became University College of Addis Ababa in 1950, and haile Selassie I University in 1961.

University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Rhodesia, est. 1953). Via the Asquith Report, it affiliated with the University of London in 1955. It is now the University of Zimbabwe.

French colonial examples:

Institute of Law (Madagascar, est. 1947) – affiliated with University of Aix-Marseille

Institute of Higher Studies (Senegal, est. 1950) – affiliated with the Universities of Paris and Bordeaux. Became a university by decree in 1957.

Institute of Higher Studies (Madagascar, est. 1955)

Institute of Higher Studies (Cote D’Ivoire, est. 1958)

Institute of Higher Studies (Congo-Brazzaville, est. 1959)

DR Congo – first six-year secondary schools not established until 1948. By 1954, university classes were being offered at Lovanium (Kinshasa). The Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels had started operating a research entity there in 1925.

DR Congo – the Free University of Congo (University of Kisangani) was decreed in 1963, three years AFTER independence, having been first established in 1955. The State University of the Congo opened in 1956, it was later renamed Official University of Congo (1963), and affiliated with the Free University in Brussels – this was again renamed and is still called the University of Lubumbashi)

Nkulu’s point with these other examples is how closely Africa’s colonial era institutions maintained connections with the home country’s institutions.

1960s saw the growth of homegrown universities with the presumed purpose of educating enough locals so as to replace any remaining ex-colonial administrators, teachers, etc. Nigeria’s examples include University of Nigeria Nsukka (1960), Ahmadu Bello University, University of Ife (Obafemi Awolowo University), and University of Lagos – all in the 1960s. Eventually, Nigeria would have the largest university system on the continent. Ghana’s examples include Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi (1961 – an upgrade of Kumasi College), and Nkrumah did away with Legon’s affiliation with the University of London in the late 1950s. The University College of Cape Coast was established in 1962, as a teacher training center in affiliation to the University of Ghana, Legon.

Nkrumah’s efforts in the late 1950s and early 1960s to establish African Studies – Africa’s history taught in Africa by Africans – are described briefly (pages 58-59). By 1962, African Studies were compulsory to all students at Legon, with the Institute of African Studies having been founded by then.

From Conscientism: Philosophy and Ideology for De-Colonization – page 79 – “The philosophy that must stand behind this social revolution is that which I have once referred to as philosophical Consciencism; Consciencism is the map in intellectual terms of the disposition of forces which will enable African society to digest the Western and Islamic and the Euro-Christian elements in Africa, and develop them in such a way that they fit into the African personality. The African personality is itself defined by the cluster of humanist principles which underlie the traditional African society.

University of Yaounde (Cameroon, est. 1962)

University of Abidjan (Cote D’Ivoire, est. 1964)

University of Malawi (est. 1964)

University of Zambia (est. 1965)

1961 UNESCO conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia reported out a plan to establish 32 institutions of higher learning throughout Africa between 1961 and 1980. These institutions were to maintain “international standards” and remain connected to the societies they served.

p. 61: “Higher education continues to be perceived as perpetuating the colonial mindset of education for access to power, prestige, and wealth. Walter Rodney, one of the outspoken critics of colonialism and slavery, assumed that colonial Western education was designed not “to promote the most rational use of material and social resources,” but “to instill a sense of deference towards all that was European and capitalist”.”

Chapter Four – Nyerere and Social Transformation in Tanzania – pages 63-90

A brief biography (pages 63-72) of Nyerere includes information about his formal schooling (that is, Western education),as well as some intimation that he may have “experienced indigenous education” as was common in that era (he was born in 1922, one of 26 children of his polygamous father (who had 22 wives). Nyerere would attend Makerere College from 1942, age 20) – from page 65.

Nyerere becomes a devout Catholic while at Tabora Boys Secondary School, and is baptized just prior to graduation in 1942. He also becomes an ardent scholar of World War II, trying to understand, as a youth, what brought the U.S. and Japan to war.

While at Makerere College, Nyerere founded the Tanganyika Welfare Association (TAWA) for students from that colony, and became the organization’s Secretary. On learning that his idea to establish branches of TAWA in Tanganyika itself would collide with existing efforts – principally the lower-level civil service association Tanganyikan African Association – Nyerere was persuaded instead to reorient TAWA to become a Makerere satellite of TAA. His interest in politics as an adult could be viewed with this effort as first-order expression.

Nyerere, after accepting a teaching post at Saint Mary’s College in Tabora (college in the old British sense of “A levels” I’d think), he was offered a scholarship to pursue doctoral studies (economics, history and philosophy would be the focus of his work) by the University of Edinburgh (1949).

Nyerere would be influenced by the writings of John Stuart Mill – especially as concerns Mill’s ideas that “freedom, which implies making of personal choices, and development, or the fulfillment of one’s potential, complement each other.” (p. 70)

Nyerere would attain a Master’s Degree – the first Tanganyikan to do so – in 1952, and return directly to Tanganyika, without further pursuing the PhD he had gone to Edinburgh to attain. Back in Tanganyika, at Saint Francis College, in Pugu, near Dar es Salaam, he began teaching again. He was also elected President of TAA. He would rewrite the TAA statutes, modeling them on Kwame Nkrumah’s CPP statutes (by this time, Nkrumah was already Prime Minister of a self-ruled Gold Coast)

1954 – TAA morphs into TANU (Tanganyika African National Union), n overly political organization fighting for the liberation of the colony.

1957 – Nyerere attends Ghana’s independence celebration. Nkrumah suggests a Pan-African conference be set up for 1958. Nyerere organizes nationalist leaders of east and southern Africa, who attend such a conference in Mwanza.

1958 – Nyerere arrested by the colonial authorities for inciting anti-government activities. He is fiend and released. By 1959, Nyerere wins the general elections and heads the Council of advisors to the colonial governor.

1960 - TANU again wins general elections, and Nyerere is appointed Chief Minister of Tanganyika. He becomes Prime Minister in December 1961, when Tanganyika achieves independence.

Arusha Declaration – 1967 – Ujamaa (familyhood/brotherhood/sisterhood/community) established as a guiding principle of governance.

p. 74: “In essence, the Arusha Declaration was a strategy designed to facilitate Tanzania’s social transformation. The declaration called for socialism and self-reliance. The main characteristics of this strategy were an emphasis on equality (to consolidate national unity and harmony), democratic participation in the decision-making process, elf-reliance (dependence on personal effort primarily to eliminate poverty), and the creation of a socialist environment (to foster communal values and not assertive individualism).”

Nkulu posits that Nyerere’s ideas, as expressed in the Arusha Declaration, are akin to contemporaneous Swedish ideas of society. Olaf Palme, then (1968) Prime Minister of Sweden (and eventually the assassinated Prime Minister – 1986) and his ideas about Social Democratic values, was influential.

p. 76: “Through this combination of thought and appropriate action, Nyerere and his political party hoped to transform Tanzania into a democratic nation that would uphold the communal values which characterized life in pre-colonial African societies.”

Nkulu acknowledges that the ujamaa practices (distinct, in my mind from the formative ideas) of relocation and villagization, separated people – in some cases forcibly – from the land in which their identities were rooted. Such a practice – again, distinct from the ideas – could hardly be seen as supportive of “communal values.”

Nkulu mentions Desmond Tutu’s notion of Ubuntu – individuals are human only in community (p. 77) – link this to ethnic conflict in Kenya, focused on nation-building there, and the absence of development on Kenya’s coast.

Tabora Boys School as modeled on Eton – the most elite school in Britain. Nkulu cites Shirley DuBois as to the British interest in making education/schooling a pursuit for an indigenous elite – not for any democratization process. This is what Nyerere would pursue post-Arusha Declaration.

1974 – Musoma Declaration

p. 78: “. . . a policy statement by the National Executive Committee of the TANU – a party led by Nyerere – stipulated that “the main purpose of education is to enable man to liberate himself” from elements which deprive one of freedom to control one’s destiny or transform one’s environment. Thus, education in Tanzania became reflective of the policy of socialism and self-reliance while Nyerere was that country’s president. Schools and institutions of higher learning integrated intellectual activities with work and service to the community.”

Omari’s criticism of Nyerere’s policies is mentioned.

p. 79: “Omari’s criticism is based on the fact that Tanzania’s socialist policies (mandatory National Service and work experience prior to enrollment at the university) seemed to indicate that the university education was being used for vocational training for the masses instead of perpetuating the elitist liberal tradition. Mandatory National Service was perceived as a radical attempt by the government of Tanzania to coerce students into community service, a way of countering the pursuit of the so-called intellectual and social arrogance colonial higher education was accused of fostering.”

Plato’s three types mentioned (p. 80) – uneducated persons; non-practical intellectuals; and philosopher-ruler (educated AND practical). Page 81: “Nyerere literally became the kind of philosopher Plato wished would descend into “the cave” and help “fellows” to see the reality beyond the shadows.”

Nkulu later (p. 86) says Nyerere was not a Plato-nist regarding higher education, as he was not after educating an elite, but a popular, mass kind of applicable higher education. In this same section, Nkulu revisits the scholars described in the first chapter (Locke, Rousseau, J.S. Mill, Comenius, Newman, and Ortega y Gasset). Nyerere is defined – sort of – as a combination of all of these, taking pieces of each philosophy as appropriate for his view of what higher education in Tanzania should be.

1961 – Nyerere states a philosophy of education at the opening of Kivukoni College, a precursor college to University College of Dar es Salaam, dedicated to students of education. P. 81: “. . .graduates of Kivukoni must be like the yeast in a loaf, effective because it cannot be isolated, its presence being known by the work it has done.” Nyerere would later (1964) speak at the graduation ceremony of the first group of students to complete their Kivukoni studies. This would also be the ceremony that established the University College of Dar es Salaam.

1966 – Nyerere speaks to the General Assembly of the World University Service – “The University’s Role in the Development of New Countries.” – “Nyerere castigated those who were in pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, which he saw as a luxury for poor countries. He proposed that an institution of higher learning ought to pursue the knowledge which can solve the problems of society.”

p. 84 – Nyerere as a Freire-an thinker – education as promoter of “critical consciousness.”

p. 86-87 – Nyerere is shown to have taken elements of the philosophies of each of those noted in Chapter Two.

p. 87: “Nyerere was himself an example of the kind of educated person he envisioned for Tanganyika. He was highly educated for leadership and yet he had an attitude of service (a servant-leader) to society. Nyerere was an intellectual committed to responding to daily-life issues in Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa for the welfare of all human beings.”

p. 87: “One of the most interesting conclusions about Nyerere may well be his ability to balance elements from African and Western cultures with a rare touch of pragmatism. Like John Dewey, Nyerere hoped that combining critical analysis with positive action would not only ascertain the link between education and real issues, but also help to solve the problems of society. Both Dewey and Nyerere hoped education would enable individuals to better understand and to relate to the world in which they live with the purpose of contributing to its transformation for the better.”

Chapter Five – The Dar es Salaam Model of Higher Education – pages 91-118

1955 – Working Party on Higher Education approved a proposition to establish a university in Tanganyika. No description of who constituted this group (indigenous and/or colonial).

1958 – a second Working Party on Higher Education – appointed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies on behalf of the Governments of East Africa – recommended opening a university college in Morogoro by 1965/66 (Morogoro is the site of Sokoine University).

1961 – The Tanganyika National Assembly voted to establish a Provisional Council of the University College. Law Studies would constitute the initial focus. The U.C. would grow to become the constituent college of the University of East Africa by 1963, and UDASA by 1970.

See A.J. Temu (1970s) and Eric Ashby (1960s) for comparative history of the constituent schools of the University of East Africa.

Nkulu describes some contention between the University of London, and scholars and administrators in East Africa about adapting London expectations to East African realities. Concerning the study of law – see below, quote from p. 94.

p. 94: “The University College in Dar es Salaam documents how, in early years, legal education involved “critical study of cases, by means of ‘moots,’ by rapid interchange between teacher and student in the discussion-style lecture and by the more demanding confrontation of minds in the small tutorial.” In this way, creative thinking may suggest critical and creative adaptation of Western legal concepts to the conditions of East Africa.”

p. 96: “In order to make the curriculum relevant to Tanzania, the University College of Dar es Salaam sought to adapt the Western legal concept to the social, political, economic, and cultural realities of East Africa, thus setting itself in contrast to British legal tradition. Such adaptation could have been in line with the hypothesis that curriculum change is often influence by an array of social factors among which demography, politics, economy, and technology are the most salient. In fact, higher education curriculum is culturally and ideologically embedded in “the social order of the society” being served.”

1964 – Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences begun at University College of Dar es Salaam. Economics, education, geography, history, language and linguistics, literature, and political science are offered. This Faculty would lead the way in application of Swahili to the broader society as national language and medium of instruction.

1965 – Faculty of Sciences opens. Botany, chemistry, mathematics, physics, and zoology are offered.

1968 – Faculty of Medicine opens.

1969 – Faculty of Agriculture opens in Morogoro.

1973 – Faculty of Engineering opens.

1979 – Faculty of Commerce and Management opens.

1970 Act of Parliament that led to establishment of UDASA – Section 4: University Objectives and Function:

(a) to preserve, transmit and enhance knowledge for the benefit of the people of Tanzania in accordance with the principles of socialism accepted by the people of Tanzania;

(b) to create a sense of public responsibility in the educated and to promote respect for learning and pursuit of truth;

(c) to prepare students to work with the people of Tanzania for the benefit of the nation;

(d) to assume responsibility for University education within the United Republic and to make provision for places and centers of learning, education, training and research;

(e) to cooperate with the Government of the United Republic and the people of Tanzania in the planned and orderly development of education in the United Republic;

(f) to stimulate and promote intellectual and cultural development of the United Republic for the benefit of the people of Tanzania; and,

(g) to conduct examinations for, and to grant degrees, diplomas, certificates, and other awards of the University.

EASE – East African Society and Environment – would morph into the Institute for Development Studies - began as a seminar in the Faculty of Law. Eventually became a common interdisciplinary course.

Social and economic Problems of East Africa – established by the Faculty of Law in 1964 – is suggested as an alternative beginning to the Institute for Development Studies.

p. 99: “Piccioto and Abdul Paliwala maintain that the course which later became known as Development Studies was introduced after the sending away of about three hundred students from the University of Dar es Salaam in 1966 due to a protest against the government’s decision to make National Service mandatory for all university students. Students marched to the State House and accused the Government of acting in a way “worse than colonialism.” Shivji explains that Social and Economic Problems of East Africa was first organized in the Law Faculty in response to increasing calls for a university education relevant to Tanzania. According to Shivji, proponents of the course believed it would transform the so-called traditional and bourgeois approach to education. Bourgeois education was accused of compartmentalizing knowledge and empowering a small group of people over the majority.”

1969 – Development Studies initiated by that name at UDASA, post Arusha Declaration.

1970 – a Department of Development Studies is established. Within the Faculty of Arts and Social Science.

1973 – the Department of Development Studies becomes the Institute of Development Studies.

1980/81 – a PhD program is established at IDS.

Primary Aims for the course on Development Studies: (page 100)

  • To expose students to the theories and problems of social development in the Third World (developing countries) in general, and Africa and Tanzania in particular;
  • To guide students to an understanding if alternative development strategies at both national and international levels;
  • To enable students to develop appropriate tools of analysis, such as critical analysis as well as an integrated broad approach, for analyzing development issues;
  • To prepare, in collaboration with relevant Faculties, personnel who are qualified to deal with problems of development in Africa in general, and in Tanzania in particular;
  • To ensure that teaching and learning remain consistent with the aims of the general development objectives of Tanzania; and,
  • To guide students to acquire the appropriate tools and methods for analyzing and integrating theory with practice.

IDS was a site for argument between Social Democratic support of Tanzanian socialism – emphasizing commitment to the people – and radical Marxist interpreters of Tanzanian socialism – who saw the need for a closed-ranks party vanguard.

p. 101: “Herbert Kliebard describes curriculum as a place where the battle over “values and beliefs” shaping national policies is engaged. Should the introduction of EASE and Development Studies have sought to inculcate values and attitudes of self-determination, one can argue that Nyerere’s ideas and Tanzanian politics influenced university curriculum. In theory, the teaching of the common interdisciplinary course presupposes a link between undergraduate curriculum at the University of Dar es Salaam and the national discourse on socialism and self-reliance at the time.”

p. 105: “Nyerere’s influence on the curriculum at the University of Dar es Salaam may not be self-evident, but Nyerere’s support or greater tolerance of foreign scholars contributed to making Dar es Salaam an intellectual and political sanctuary. Scholars and political activists from all over Africa and beyond went to Dar es Salaam while relevance to economic, political and social problems in Tanzania and Africa was sparking critical reflections on campus, thus boosting the reputation of Dar es Salaam as a progressive institution.

Page 107 - Quoting Shivji (1996): “The great strength of that period, it seems to me, was the critical attitude. Nothing was taken for granted. Everything was subjected to criticism and evaluation. The intellectual at the time saw himself/herself as a social critic, not as a careerist, or simply an arm-chair contemplator or thinker. The spirit of the time, if I may summarize it in a phrase, was “doubt everything,” – not as a cynic, but as a critic. Dare to think – not simply as a contemplative philosopher, but as a historical actor. Dare to rebel – not as an anarchist, but as an organizer.”

University Students African Revolutionary Front (USARF) and TANU Youth League (TYL) – each was active in the Faculty of Law in the mid-to-late 1960s, prior to the establishment of UDASA as an independent national university. Each was militant against perceived neo-colonial attitudes and practices among the (often largely foreign) faculty. Each contributed to student action against unpopular policy decisions –perhaps including mandatory National Service.

Wretched of the Earth is described as being an essential part of the reading by radical students of the lat 1960s and into the 70s. Yoweri Museveni is quoted – page 110 – in a 1986 speech at his alma mater, UDASA – speaking about the course on Development Studies and the way in which the course led to students learning to think critically and to act on their thought.

p. 111: “David Court quotes Yash Tandon as reporting: Whatever its present weaknesses, inherently or as reflections of the wider society, EASE is one of the very few instances of successful (or relatively successful) experiments in African universities to create areas of knowledge, and methods of acquiring knowledge, that are both indigenously relevant and interdisciplinary.”

Walter Rodney was teaching at UDASA (1968-1974) when How Europe Underdeveloped Africa was first published (1972), his second time through Tanzania, having taught there earlier in 1968, until gaining a position at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He would be expelled from Jamaica (or, rather, not permitted to re-enter the country after attending a conference in Canada), and returned to Tanzania to teach, write, and engage.

In the end, Nkulu contrasts Rodney’s radical Marxist stance versus Nyerere’s Social Democrat stance, gives Rodney points for establishing a critically engaged atmosphere at UDASA, but wonders whether this atmosphere actually assisted Tanzania in engaging its needs as Nyerere saw them.

Chapter Six – Nyerere and the Idea of Higher Education in a New Century – pages 119-140

p. 122-123: “The decision to dismiss some three hundred students from the university College of Dar es Salaam because of their participation in the 1966 protest march to the State House against mandatory National Service has been interpreted in a number of ways. Nyerere’s supporters approved the decision because they assumed students were ungrateful to a government which ahd invested much in their preparation for service to society. Their assumption was based on the allegation that students rejected mandatory National Service but demanded increase in their allowances. Refusal of mandatory service to the nation and demand of increased benefits from the same nation instead sounded detrimental to social equity, to the well-being of many. One can assume Nyerere felt betrayed by the people he was trying to help get free education, but who would not agree to serve the nation.

In contrast, Nyerere’s opponents denounced the dismissal of students because of what they realized to be a contradiction of the claim that higher education should concern itself with enabling individuals to analyze critically, to understand, and to respond to societal problems. The denunciation of students’ dismissal is a reminder of the traditional conflict between politics and scholarship, between power and academic freedom. Political leaders give the impression that they want higher education to empower individuals for critical reasoning, but they find it difficult to tolerate the challenge of political establishment by intellectuals. It is possible Nyerere backed the dismissal of students, in part, for fear of political setbacks the protest might cause to the country and to his own leadership.”

p. 123: “The dismissal of university students in 1966 was controversial. The students’ protest could be justified on the grounds of critical enquiry and not of political and social considerations. Because the protest appeared defiant to the political establishment and detrimental to the public interest, one can realize that the sending down of students from the University of Dar es Salaam was not necessarily anti-intellectual the way Nyerere’s critics have charged. The decision was motivated, perhaps, by interest in undermining the presumed intellectual and social arrogance colonial higher education was accused of entertaining. It is widely assumed that Western-style university graduates see themselves as very special and entitled to increased power, benefits, and prestige, compared to the rest of the society. Graduates from the University of Dar es Salaam interviewed during the doctoral research, which preceded this book, have affirmed that National Service made Tanzanians realize their moral obligation to serve the country in return for free education.”

p. 123-124: “Other critics have accused Nyererte of authoritarian drifts. John Saul (a former instructor at the University of Dar es Salaam until the early 1970s) blames Nyerere for having kept a blind eye on the forceful extraction and expulsion of Akivaga from the university and the country, and also on the humiliation of students and faculty by security forces during the 1971 crisis. According to Saul, Nyerere was responsible for such authoritarian and undemocratic practices that his own government forces allegedly perpetrated. The use of forces in all the instances Saul has alluded to does not necessarily establish a case for Nyerere’s authoritarianism or anti-democratic attitude.

One of the most significant charges against Nyerere’s policies on higher education was levied by I.M. Omari in an article mentioned earlier. Omari points to the fact that mandatory National Service and Education for Self-Reliance were radical moves by which Nyerere and the Tanzanian government attempted to change higher education from a colonial and liberal model into a utilitarian model. Enlistment in the National Service was the first radical attempt by which the government used coercion to inculcate a traditional African “attitude of mind” – a communal attitude of solidarity, sharing, and social responsibility – that Nyerere believed had once characterized corporate existence in traditional African societies. Education for Self-Reliance castigated “elitism” and intellectual arrogance, writes Omari.”

Musoma Declaration – mandated that changes to be made to university admission. Students now came from the work force, with testimonials from supervisors and party apparatchiks as to candidates “good character and work discipline.” (124). As Nkulu indicates, page 126, it may have been Nyerere’s lieutenants who couldn’t handle the criticisms coming from students, and who were tougher on students than Nyerere himself would have been – he, after all, sought to create a higher education environment of critical analysis and assessment. Perhaps Nyerere stance on Akivaga and Musoma was that the political cost of fighting his lieutenants was greater than the educational benefit of more fully supporting the students.

Conclusion – pages 141-143

p. 141: “As the world becomes even more globalized, there is the risk that institutions of higher education worldwide will limit themselves to the production of learned but uncultured experts (to paraphrase Ortega y Gasset), those professionally trained individuals who are less sensitive or irresponsive to issues affecting the welfare of many in society.”

p. 142: “ . . . politics and finances impact and influence educational policies significantly. Politics implies to power to bargain, control, or negotiate shared interests with various stakeholders, whereas finances implies the prerogative to dispose of cash resources as one chooses. In the context of Tanzania, Nyerere appears to have had political but not financial power. He had political power to influence policies favor the welfare of all in his country, but he lacked financial power to implement fully the same policies. External donors and funding organizations had financial power over Tanzania. Dependence on external funding contributed to ineffective implementation of reform policies in cash-strapped Tanzania.”

p. 142: “In Africa, successful reform in higher education requires mental transformation beyond political and financial autonomy. Africans have to adopt new attitudes of mind capable of fostering a sense of the common good, responsibility, accountability, and cooperation with local bases in addition to partnership with external donors. Strengthening community-based funding and support inspires a spirit of corporate ownership conducive to social participation by many, if not all, and provides room for autonomous implementation of locally and nationally initiated policies and programs. That is, educational reformers in Africa should envision new ways of building human capacity for social transformation and not for capital accumulation exclusively.

p. 142-143: “On the one hand, liberal education enhances abilities for participation in democratic processes but not for solving problems such as the ones related to food security, health, and the like. On the other hand, utilitarian education prepares for solving social problems but not for acquiring abilities for critical investigation or participation in the democratic processes. Liberal and utilitarian education have both strengths and limitations, but a balance between them is far better and highly desirable.”