[By F.L. Bartels] Journey Out Of The African Maze: Indigenous And Higher Education In Tandem

JOURNEY OUT OF THE AFRICAN MAZE: INDIGENOUS AND HIGHER EDUCATION IN TANDEM calls on African universities to turn away from meetings that inevitably lead to recommendations, plans of operation, and proposals for aid. The author's reason for making this proposal, however, is neither one nor other of the two positions discernible in the current debate on the way forward in African development.

It stems from African pragmatism. He suggests that African universities should use the time, energy and money that are being spent on the repetitive activities of the past - proposal-formulating commissions and plans-of-action-conferences - to empower

• their postgraduate students,
• the Professors and lecturers who are guiding them in their research, and
• retired Professors in their fields of study to team up with their counterparts in the indigenous system to create such knowledge, and promote such action, as will guide their countries out of the development maze in which they find themselves.

Source: Francis Bartels