Ogot, Bethwell A. (1999) Building on the indigenous: Selected essays, 1981-1998 Kisumu (Kenya): Anyange Press Ltd.
Chapter Three - University development in Kenya – What Options? – pages 25-30
Keynote address at The Maseno University College Workshop o Development Options, 5-7 December, 1991 held in Kisumu
Ogot was Vice-Chair of the 1988 Presidential Working Party that produced the Kamunge Report.
Ogot makes the direct statement that: page 25: “Fro the early 1950s to late 1970s, university education in Kenya played a dynamic role in nation-building, especially by producing professional elites in the various walks of life. By 1980, university education in Kenya was beginning to pass over into mass education”
p. 26: “Turning to university education planning, there are two approaches which appear to be in conflict: the manpower requirement approach and the social demand approach. The former emphasizes the possible oversupply of graduates and high expenditures of university education. The latter emphasizes the right of all qualified individuals to university education. There is therefore a ‘mismatch’ between university education and the employment system.”
p. 29: :When we turn to the important area of cultural identity, it is evident that the very basis of the cultural life of people is being threatened. The worldwide influence of a certain number of cultural models, the effects of advertising and the media, the standardization of tastes and lifestyles induced by standardized production methods, the erosion of certain traditional values and the difficulty of identifying new ones, all these phenomena help to explain the concern of very many societies, to preserve, defend and promote their cultural identities. Society expects education, especially university education, to help solve this problem.
In order to play this new role, education systems must fight against the tendency to accord value only to the utilitarian aspects of their action which in some cases leads to reducing the importance attached to the humanistic and cultural dimension and content of education.”
Chapter Eleven – Social Sciences in the 21st Century: From Rhetoric to Reality – pp. 147-158
Presented at the 3rd Historical Association of Kenya’s Symposium, Egerton University, 5-6 August, 1995
Looking specifically at pages 152-153 – “social sciences in Kenya: the need for explanation”
p. 152: “The political context in which the positivist social sciences were transferred from the West to the Third World was not conducive to debate or questioning of their epistemological basis. Doubters and dissenters remained minority voices, until positivist social sciences were seriously challenged in the West itself during the 1970s.
Simultaneously, the traditional political context of colonialism and to an extent neo-colonialism changed, providing a new context conducive both to political and intellectual self-assertion by some African social scientists.
This expanded consciousness led to a critique of Western positivist social sciences for their ethnocentrism, their exaggerated claim to universality, their focus on causes of under-development through factors internal to these societies without adequate weight given to the role of colonialism. They were accused of serving the political and economic interest of the West and thus perpetuating intellectual colonialism and dependence. There were calls for intellectual decolonization, liberation and self-reliance, adaptation rather than wholesale thoughtless adoption of Western social sciences; and finally there were loud calls for indigenization.
But much of such outpourings were mere rhetoric. With few exceptions, most of the social scientific literature in Kenya is not oriented to cumulative growth of knowledge in nay specific field or in social sciences as a whole. Generally, it lacks theoretical orientation and theoretical framework. And wherever a theoretical framework is used, it is not itself subjected to critical assessment. Most African social scientists are wanting in methodological rigor and conceptual insight. Most of them are preoccupied with the social, economic, and political situation in their countries. True, their empirical studies and conceptual insights make us more aware of social life and problems in African societies, but their theoretical and methodological contributions to social science, as an international academic discipline, is limited.”
Ogot goes on to trouble the study of anthropology – “can we have ‘home anthropologists? And what is the implication [of any positive answer to the foregoing question] for the actual framework of anthropology as the study or non-Western societies by Western scholars?” (p. 153), as well as sociology.
Chapter Twelve - National Identity and Nationalism: concepts and ideologies – pages 159-170
Keynote address presented at the Commonwealth Association of Museums seminar on “Museums and National Identity – Broad Perspectives” held September 17-28, 1995, South Africa and Botswana.
p. 159: “In the anti-colonial struggles of the Third World, for example, nationalist ideologies proved to be powerful weapons. In countries such as India, Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana and Kenya, among many others, the early nationalist ideologies attempted to unite diverse peoples under the banner of a single national idea without raising the question whether the concept of nationhood which had evolved in Europe and the Americas was suitable for the ethnically pluralistic societies that were soon to become independent within the boundaries of former colonial territories. To the majority of Africans, for example, nationalism meant the removal of colonialism, it meant Uhuru, freedom, with the hope that other things would be added later.”
p. 160; “. . . the initial cohesiveness that sustained national identity in Western Europe was absent in many African countries at the moment of independence. Hence, most African countries, like others in the Third World, are still trying to cope with the opposing tendencies of a unifying secular nationalism that was dear to the “Founding Fathers” of these nations, and the centrifugal tendencies of regional, ethnic, linguistic, religious, and communal identities that command the loyalties of many hundred of millions of citizens of those nations.”
Nationalism in the post-colonial State as being a reflection of an Ideology of the State, rather than any kind of notions of people coming together in ways organic to their lives. In this view, in order to BE Kenyan, one must forego BEING Kikuyu (for example), or Muslim, or, etc.
European states absorbed cultural/ethnic minorities into a much larger ethnic “core group”. In the USA, that was and remains WASP, northern European identity.
p. 161: “Cohesion was the fruit of a deliberate, centralized, and at times harsh political effort, whether undertaken by centralized state bureaucracies, cultural elites, or others. Thus arose the “nationality principle” which identified state and nation and which led to the current world system of so-called nation-states.”
THEORIES OF NATIONALISM AND NATIONS
(1) nationalism as a primordial phenomenon based on rational or objectively valid criteria on the basis of which the world can be divided up into different national communities – nations exist as objective reality in history whether all its people are conscious of this national existence/identity or not – page 163: “Thus the nation, according to this theory is seen as a non-historical entity directly rooted in some transcendent or natural order.”;
(2) nationalism as a subjective consciousness of the members of the community – nation as the expression of a common consciousness. From Gellner – page 163 – “it is nationalism that engenders nations, and not the other way around. Benedict Anderson is also cited – from Imagined Communities. p. 164: “To the works of Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson and A.D. Smith, should be added those of Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger. All these studies demonstrate close links between ethnicity and nationalism and national identity. In their writings, both Ernest Gellner and Eric Hobsbawn emphasized the idea that nationalism was a relatively recent creation, specifically a response to the upheavals of the industrial revolution and the evolution of modern bureaucratic states.”;
(3) nationalism as a functional requirement of the modern state – especially around the growth of communications, which lifted people away from local parochial identities and forged broader identity formations, and larger-scale economic and political connection.;
(4) nationalism as a specific form of politics that groups use under certain historical circumstances in opposition to the State – something that happens with States, by groups wishing to secede, introduce political reforms the State would not support, or expand the State to include similarly minded groups – think ‘Arab nationalism’ here;
(5) the Marxist interpretation of nationalism – nationalism = a false identity, a bourgeois concept that obfuscates the proletarian focus on the class struggle.
Chapter Thirteen - The role of the university in development pages 171-178
Keynote address presented at the Postgraduate Student Seminars – Kenyatta University – 16-18 October 1995
Ogot points out – page 173, that over 30,000 African PhD holders are industrialized countries – i.e. not in their countries of origin. Brain drain.
Poverty is the problem. Development is the issue. Education is the solution.
p. 175: “If African universities are to play a positive role in development, they must first radically recast themselves instead of reproducing archaic patterns which are completely unsuited to the needs of independence and the objectives of the contemporary world. In other words, the idea of a university must be rethought and the plant restructured.”
Universities must get specific in identifying the problems they seek to address, and then corral the resources (scientific, technical, and human) needed to deal with the problems.
Universities must begin to see their students as social change agents, knowledgeable in the scientific, technical and human resource elements that will assist in problem solving.
Universities must again see, as a practical aim of their efforts, the shaping of a “cultural and national identity, the creation of an African awareness of belonging to a sub-region, a region, a continent.” (p. 175)
p. 176: “. . . much of the university-based research is rarely utilized. There is therefore and urgent need for national policies aimed at making university basic research productive.
One way is to devise ways and means in which universities can collaborate with local industries and the government to promote national and regional development. The universities, the public and private sectors should jointly determine research priority areas. Having done this, the government could establish joint industry–university research centers throughout the country to carry out research in those priority research areas.
Ogot warns against too reductive a view of higher education as being simply a conduit to practical application, and not more:
Page 177: “We are more than the mere sum of our current economic needs; we are participants in a social and political enterprise which vindicated itself in terms of the values which it has progressively generated during our history. And the purpose of education – particularly university education – is to equip us to confront those values from time to time, to question their contemporary manifestations and to modify their application without destroying their relevance to our capacity for self-development as human beings.”
Chapter Eighteen - Lessons of experience: Higher education policy of the World Bank in Africa – pages 251-276
Public lecture given at Maseno University, April 27, 1998
You can’t review higher education in Africa in the last decades without looking at the financial constraints, and economic activity of major multinational forces like the World bank and the IMF, and the impact these bodies had, especially through SAPs, on local economic activity – specifically government support for education.
Lack of building space for offices, lecture halls, laboratories, etc.;
Lack of books and other academic resources;
Insufficient investment in latest technologies;
Lack of adequate remuneration to university staff and faculty;
Insufficient financial support to students (through loans – HELB in Kenya - and grants) – especially after cost-sharing was introduced;
Lack of direct time spent between instructor and student – too many students, too few instructors;
Etc.
1981 – World Bank – Education in sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for Adjustment, Revitalization, and Expansion – focus on cost containment, even while restoring quality – meaning students pay, meaning the elite continue to benefit, and other economic strata struggle.
1994 – World Bank – Higher Education: the Lessons of Experience – looked at ‘good practice’ in multiple countries.
(1) Encourage private institutions and private sector involvement in all universities. Differentiate institutions to avoid duplication of offerings (see rationalizing of tertiary institutions in South Africa in the 1990s).
(2) Diversify funding – shift burden from government to ‘direct beneficiaries’.
(3) Change role of government from one of direct control to one of autonomous institutions regulated by market mechanisms and only nominally supervised by the State.
(4) Finally, and somewhat contra-indicated by the other aspects, pursue policies that would assure quality and equity (socio-economic and gender) objectives.
Ogot questions Bank policy of mandating full adherence to the bank’s ideas of what good practice is as a measure of whether a government will qualify for Bank assistance. Contrast this with the reality that higher education needs may well differ from country to country, that socio-economic, economic, and political circumstances may not be identical from country to country – how then to deal with the prescriptive nature of Bank policies? While the Bank report acknowledges the specific nature of country circumstances, it nevertheless privileges convergence and commonality (i.e. prescriptive practices) rather than the acknowledged specificity.
Ogot moves to World Bank preferences for seeing multiple kinds of tertiary institution – technical colleges, teacher training colleges, etc. But he criticizes Bank policy and statements that engage in “academic drift” – that is, that expand into a larger conception – example – technical colleges becoming universities.
p. 256-257: “The process, known as “academic drift” is strongly criticized by the Bank, which regards the development of universities out of colleges and polytechnics as an aberration and an unnatural evolution. But is this argument true in a historical perspective? Was the creation of Moi University, for instance, a more ‘natural’ development than that of other Kenyan universities which reached university status through the upgrading of more vocationally oriented pre-existing colleges? The World Bank, moreover, has argued that University development is expensive. Rather than create new institutions, many countries especially in Africa, have upgraded existing institutions using the strength of well-established universities in their countries as a shield and support for fledgling colleges. It is interesting to note that the World Bank prescription notwithstanding, the Kenya government has stated in the National Development Plan 1997-2001, that during the plan period, the Commission for Higher Education will explore the possibilities of middle-level colleges starting degree programmes.”
Referring to H.E.L.B. loan programs to help Kenyan students pay for University, Ogot writes,
p. 260: “The grandiose strategy stated in the national Development Plan 1997-2001 on how to improve the education sector in Kenya is a good example of the dilemma higher education in Africa faces. According to the plan, the Higher Education Loans Board is to be restructured and capitalized so that it can give loans to all qualifying students. Virtually all university students, the Plan notes, will require the loans, which cover food, accommodation, book, and personal allowances. No wonder the Kenyan government has had to go to the World Bank to borrow money to capitalize the loan scheme!”
In the immediate preceding paragraph, Ogot had written that since 1975, 70% of the Kenyan students who had received HELB loans for university expenses had failed to repay the loan. So, it seems the World Bank has entered into a scheme to give money to the Kenyan government so that the Kenyan government can give money to students, where there exists 23 years of evidence that the funds may well not be repaid, all so the cost of higher education can be shared.
Ogot gets at World Bank economistic perspectives on page 265, specifically around the matter of what the purpose of higher education is. Is it to be utilitarian, vocational, connected to future jobs and earnings? Or are there other purposes to keep in mind?
