AAU/CVCP CELEBRATION OF AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES DAY. 13 TH NOVEMBER 2001. KNUST, KUMASI

GLOBALIZATION AND HIGHER EDUCATION IN AFRICA
(Discussant's Reaction to Keynote Address by Rev. Prof. Samuel K. Adjepong,
Former Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Coast).

by
Ivan Addae-Mensah Vice-Chancellor,
University of Ghana, Legon

INTRODUCTION

The concept of Globalization now seems to be dominating every facet of human endeavour. We are constantly being confronted with issues of globalization in trade, industrial development, information and communications technology, environmental issues, health, population and gender issues.

In his paper, Prof. Adjepong posited that the major driving force of globalization is information communications technology, and he devoted virtually the entire presentation to ICT and its effects on university education in Africa But I believe that globalization in all its ramifications depends on one major broad factor - education. ICT is just one of the tools of education that is playing a major role in globalization. Both formal and informal education have played major roles in fueling the rapid trend towards the concept of a global village. Since Universities and higher educational institutions constitute the ultimate in formal and continuing education, their role in this phenomenon cannot be underestimated .

In a commentary on a recent World Bank publication entitled " Higher Education in Developing Countries-Peril and Promise ", the author observes, and I quote,

As knowledge becomes more important to the global economy, so does higher education. The quality of knowledge generated within higher education institutions, and its accessibility to the wider economy, is increasingly critical to national competitiveness. However, developing countries are falling behind. Their higher education systems are chronically underfunded, Faculty under qualified and poorly motivated, and students often badly taught. Developing countries need to teach more students to a higher standard, and develop the research capacity that will help them connect to the knowledge society.(1)

The world Bank report also concludes that

Without more and better higher education, developing countries will find it increasingly difficult to benefit from the global knowledge-based economy. (1)

In a recent policy statement by the International Association of Universities, it is observed that

to fulffl its role effectively and maintain excellence, higher education must become far more internationalized; ft must integrate international and inter-cuftural dimensions into its teaching, research and service functions. Preparing future leaders and citizens for a highly interdependent world, requires a higher education system where internationalization promotes cultural diversity and fosters intercultural understanding, respect, and tolerance among peoples. Such internationalization of higher education contributes to building more than economically competitive and politically powerful regional blocks; it represents a commitment to international solidarity, human security, and helps to build a climate of global peace" (2).

Notwithstanding the obviously positive aspects and advantages of globalization, the phenomenon has also brought in its wake, several disadvantages, which have affected the developing world more seriously than other parts of the world. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. The economic power of the rich nations is making it easier for them to exploit even more intensely, the natural resources and the market opportunities provided by the global village. Sustainable development is still an elusive goal to many of the world's poor, and the interests of the poorer nations continue to be sacrificed for short-term gains. The level of internationalization of higher education remains low and uneven, and has had little impact on global wealth and resource distribution. If developing countries are to achieve sustainable development, much of this will be predicated upon sound, bold and sustainable education policies. But should these objectives be absolutely dependent on globalization of their education systems? "Is globalization an inevitable process which all countries must adapt to in the end, or is it a passingfad with a limited life-span ", asks Muriel Poisson in a recent publication. (3)

Already, some men of vision have started sounding the warning bells to developing countries about the indiscriminate adoption of globalization concepts, and the dangers posed by overt attempts by the developed world, particularly the USA, to extend the philosophy of the World Trade Organization into higher education. In an article entitled Higher Educadon and the WTO: Globalizadon Run Amok, Philip G. Altbach,1 says and I quote

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is considering a series ofproposals to include higher education as one of its concerns, ensuring that the import and export ofhigher education be subject to the complex rules and legal arrangements of the WTOprotocols andfree ofmost restrictions. In the United States, the National Committeefor International Trade in Education and a group ofmainlyfor profit education providers.,are supporting this initiative. The established higher education community including the American Council on Educadon is not involved in this undertaking. The WTO initiativeposes a severe threat to the traditional ideals of the University, as well as the national and even institutional control of education, and therefore needs careful scrutiny. (4)

Professor Altbach goes on to say that

"Globalization in Higher Education exacerbates dramatic inequalities among the world's universities.............. The WTO is supposed to help guarantee that ademic institutions or other education providers could set up branches in country, export degree programmes, award degrees and certificates with minimal restriction, invest in overseas educational institutions, employ instructors for their foreign ventures, set up educational and training programs through distance technologies (of the type discussed by Professor Adjepong in his paper), without controls.................. " (4)⁽¹⁾

The question is, if this WTO initiative is allowed to materialize, how would accreditation or quality control be carried out? How would countries, or individual universities maintain their academic independence in a world in which they have minimal practical and legal control of import or export of anything, including higher education? For Africa and the developing world, this VITO initiative is ominous. As Prof. Adjepong has said in his paper, ICT is the main tool for the globalization of higher education. All the tools of ICT, including production, marketing and maintenance are controlled by the developed world. Just as the developed world has kept the developing world constantly dependent and underdeveloped through their distorted trade and industrial policies and practices, if globalization is allowed to go the way of the VYITO, Higher Education in Africa is doomed. What will happen is that the highly trained but poorly paid and overworked faculty in the tertiary institutions in Africa will gradually gravitate towards, and offer their services to these educational exporters from the developed world. Sooner or later, the universities in Africa and other parts of the developing world will be squeezed and gradually become moribund and atrophied. Africa will, through globalization, lose the battle for higher education just as it has lost out in efforts at promoting equitable trade and economic development to the developed world.

Globalization and Student and Faculty Diversity:

This is not to say that African countries should not aspire to globalization. We should. But it will be in our own interest if we decide to undertake our globalization at our own pace, and on our own terms, without being stampeded by the developed world. But to do this, several questions need to be answered. For example, To what extent will race, ethnicity and language diversity promote or threaten the achievement of global sharing of knowledge and diversification of Faculty and curriculum in African universities? Even in the USA, race and ethnicity have for a long time determined the opportunities available to significant sections of the society, and the debate continues to rage on. Although there have been considerable strides in America in narrowing the gap in educational opportunities between races through affirmative action, there is still a lot to be done. Also, a very encouraging phenomenon is rapidly growing, where through student and staff exchange programme, very significant numbers of American and other foreign students and faculty are undertaking educational exchange and study-abroad programme with African universities. In spite of the few isolated cases of cultural shock, these exchanges are really contributing positively to bringing the two continents and their people closer together. This is a positive aspect of globalization. If even America has faced, and is still facing such problems of race and ethnicity in education, then Africa, with its diverse ethnic racial, linguistic and religious diversity, faces an even more serious challenge if she wishes to move towards globalization of its education.

AFRICA

In Africa, the problem of the effects of race , ethnicity, religion and economic and social development in globalization of educational opportunities, is much more complex. Even more pertinent is the question of the degree to which Africa is involved in the globalization process. Moreover, the information and communication technologies that promote global education are available to only a small elite. Africa is a very large continent with considerable ethnic, racial, cultural and religious diversity. A sizeable majority of the world's population is not aware of, or does not even appreciate the sheer vastness and diversity of the African continent. This has often led to stereotyping and the prescription of common solutions to problems which may be as incompatible and as diverse as the continent itself. One may ask whether globalization poses a threat to this multi-faceted diversity, since the new patterns of behaviour required for adapting to globalization, available only through education, are currently based on a western model which is foreign to the unique values of other regions of the world.

In Prof. Adjepong's paper, he dwelt quite a bit on South Africa as the leading African country in the use of ICT in providing global higher education. But can we say that this facility is being equitably shared by all the diverse racial and ethnic groups, and all the different universities including the Historically black institutions? Will South Africa adopt a different attitude towards the rest of Africa while old traits and suspicions still persist within the country? Is the ICT revolution in south Africa touching all sections of the society ?

The situation where persons may be of the same ethnic or racial group, but live in different countries where different foreign languages are used as the medium of instruction in schools from the age of three, is also a serious threat to globalization of education in Africa. For example, I come from an ethnic group that lives on the border with the Ivory Coast. We straddle the two countries. When I visit my relatives in Abidjan, we speak the same local language. But a Professor from the University of Ghana cannot easily cross over to share his knowledge with his colleagues in Cote d' lvoire, simply because even though he may speak the same local language, or be from the same ethnic group, he is Anglophone while his Ivorian counterpart is Francophone. The same situation exists between several other African countries. It is not uncommon to fmd at international conferences, Anglophone participants walking out or paying little attention when a paper is being presented in French or Portuguese, and vice versa, unless there is simultaneous translation. If globalization is to benefit all of Africa, then we have to overcome these linguistic barriers.

The African Virtual University and Distance Education as Tools for ICT Based Global Education in Africa:

In his address, Professor Adjepong made mention of the African Virtual University and other forms of distance education initiatives in Africa which are, and can contribute to Africa's globalization of tertiary education. But as things stand now, the universities in the Anglophone and Francophone countries cannot even share courses. Except perhaps in the sciences, their lecturers cannot develop common curricula and courses unless some intermediary does a translation which may not even be very accurate. Different courses have to be developed for the two groups, even though two countries can be next to each other.

It is often erroneously thought that distance education is cheap, cheaper than the campusbased inter-personal pedagogy. But setting up an ICT infrastructure is not cheap. Keeping the system running can be even more expensive. The University of Ghana has so far spent over 2 million dollars in building its ICT infrastructure. Within the last six years, we have moved from a University where not more than 20 telephones functioned, to a university where many of the academic departments as well as the central administration, are linked to the Internet by fibre optic telephone cables and radio connections. Residential areas are now served by 400 telephone lines. We are linked to the Internet via a VSAT satellite system. The university's system serves as the hub for the Research and Education Network (REN) Internet system. We currently operate at a maximum frequency of 512Kbps. In order to fulfil all our obligations and at very fast speed, we need to upgrade the system to up to 2Mbps within the next 12 to 18 months. The initial investment for our ICT has all come from donor agencies, particularly DANIDA and USAID. As of now, we have signed a 29,000 dollar maintenance agreement for the optical fibre backbone and all the hubs and servers. We need another 24,000 dollars a year to maintain our Internet connectivity through the VSAT system. The other universities pay 1500 dollars per month per university or 18,000 dollars per annum each in addition, through Legon to the VSAT providers to maintain their connection to the system. We also have to pay the Frequency Board $5000 per annum for our Internet frequency allocation, even though we are a non-profit government institution. If we a-re to use these technologies for IT-based distance education, and for Internet connectivity for students and staff on campus, who is to pay for these costs? With the majority of Ghanaians in our universities paying less than $ 1 00 per annum for full on-campus degree courses, will those who opt for distance education or virtual campus online courses be made to pay the full cost which can run into thousands of dollars, or will they also expect to be subsidized by government since they are also Ghanaians? What moral justification will we have for charging full fees for those who receive distance or online education when those receiving campus education are insisting on free tuition? If they insist on also having their education free, who will pay for them? Will it be Government? And will Government be prepared, or be in a position to pay for the hundreds of thousands of students who may wish to take advantage? These are legitimate and important urgent questions which we need to answer if we are to go global with our education.

If anyone tells you he can provide anybody with full web-based university education for anything less than 3 000 dollars at real costs, tell him or her I say he is a big joker! Let me give you examples. In an article in the Canadian Educational journal University Affairs / Affaires Universitaires, entitled " Onfine Courses, a Gold Rush or Fool's Gold", Tema Frank says the following: ( 5 )

• Putting a course online currently costs a lot more than offering it in the traditional way, and the market is already so competitive that the odds of any university gaining enough market share to make a profit are low.



• Academic and corporate experts participating in a Pew Symposium in Le ' g and Technology in Miami agreed that "less than one percent" of university and college online courses will be commercially successful. "Developing online courses is like entering a lottery- mostly you earn nothing, but there is always a chance of striking it lucky"



• The development costs alone are about $40,000 a course and that excludes the cost of faculty, tutors and administrators to run it. To offer a state of the art multimedia online course costs much more.



• CE Network Inc., which plans to sell top-of-the-line continuing education courses to professionals is spending $60,000 to $80,000 for each instructional hour of its courses.

This implies that a one-semester 3-credit course could cost between 1.56 and 3.12 million dollars to develop, equivalent to between 10.92 and 21.84 billion cedis. Just for one course for one semester. Those universities which will make this kind of investment will have to recoup it. I do not think that since the University of Ghana for example started developing its distance education course materials about four years ago, we have received anything close to that sort of money for the entire exercise. So how can we in Africa compete in this global online education market? Shall we not simply end up taking lock stock and barrel, courses developed elsewhere, which may bear no relevance whatsoever to our local conditions? And who will meet that cost? Is the nation really ready to take that plunge? We have to debate this dispassionately and decide. What Ghanaians decide now will determine where we will be on the ladder of higher education in Africa in the next ten -years. All I can say now is that those countries who have been bold enough to take the right but very unpleasant decisions, are moving forward. Where shall we be in the year 2010.

CONCLUSION

Therefore in Africa, if the benefits of global provision of education are to be enjoyed by all, then there are serious barriers to be overcome. Apart from purely technical underdevelopment, there are also financial, linguistic, ethnic, racial and even religious differences. All these barriers, can constitute major impediments to globalization of higher education, and we as leaders in higher education need to make a conscious effort to work to eliminate the effects of these.

If globalization in higher education is to succeed, if Africa is not going to be left behind in the same way that the globalization of economic activity is marginalizing the continent, and if the world is going to be a global village in the true sense of the word, then not only do we have to be abreast with information and communications technology development, but several other factors, will need to be addressed. Our governments and our people must also be prepared to bear the cost because quality higher education in whatever form, whether carnpus-based or online ICT-based, is not cheap. If we expect to move with the rest of the world into the 2 1 ' century, then we must be prepared to face these harsh realities.

"Australia provides a good example of the problems facing universities in an era of globalization......... A decade ago most institutions received over 90 percent of their funding from the federal government; today no university receives more than 50 percent from the federal government.............."

NOWHERE IS COOL!!

REFERENCES

1. Higher Education in Developing Countries - Peril and Promise. 136 pages. ISBN 0-82134639-X The world Bank, Washington. See also IAU Newsletter, Vol 6 No 1, page 7 March 2000 ).

2. Towards a Century of Co-operation: Internationalization of Higher Education. A Policy Statement by the International Association of Universities. IAU Newsletter, Vol.4 No.4 (September 1998).

3. Poisson, Muriel ( 1998 ).. Education andglobalizadon. IIEP Newsletter Vol.XVI No.2, pp. 1,2 & 6.(April-June 1998).

4. Altbach, Philip G. (200 1) Higher Education and the WTO: Globalizadon run Amok International Higher Education (The Boston Centre for International Higher Education), Number 23, pp. 2-4, (Spring 200 1).

5. Frank, Tema. (2001), Online Courses, a Gold Rush or Fool's Gold? University Affairs/Affaires Universitaires, (Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada) February 200 1. pp 8-9&1 3 (French version pp 10- 1 2&26)

6.Tierney, William G. and McInnis, Craig. Globalizadon and its Discontents: Dilemmas Facing Tertiary Education in Australia. International Higher Education ( The Boston Centre for International Higher Education) Number 25, pp. 19-2 I., Fall 2001.

1. 1Philip G. Altbach is the J. Donald Monan SJ Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Centre for International Higher Education at Boston College, USA.