3 Reasons Why African Universities Have Less Bankable Ideas
African universities face huge, intersecting challenges. As a result, they are struggling to adapt.
Firstly,
enrolments are rising without universities increasing their capacities to
deliver quality education aligned
to the continent’s needs.
Secondly,
raising revenue through fees clearly isn’t the answer to funding shortfalls:
the policy of
co-financing education through tuition fees has failed to yield enough money
over the years. Instead, private universities have mushroomed, mostly offering
arts-based courses, which are cheaper to run. Public universities have also ramped
up arts course enrolments at the expense of science, technology, engineering and
mathematics. [1]
A related
consequence is that staff are overburdened by their teaching loads and pay
little attention to research. This is partly why Sub-Saharan Africa produces only one per cent of all global research. [2]
Thirdly,
the introduction of tuition fees that began in the 1990s has continued to lock
out poorer students who cannot pay. This amounts to lost talent the continent
desperately needs.
The
answer may lie in shaking up how universities approach businesses, including
informal ones. Universities will be better able to make meaningful
contributions to society by working with the private sector to develop
innovations people actually need and want.
A more
imaginative and engaged approach to the informal sector will, in turn, position
universities as socially relevant and so help galvanise new sources of funding
— a pressing need for universities across the continent.
Informal sector ignored
One trick
policymakers are missing is involving the informal sector — which is growing
across the continent — in development plans and projections. The informal
sector employs around 80 per cent of the workforce and accounts for about 40 per cent of GDP overall. It is a space where some of the continent’s
most imaginative and exciting innovations have thrived, from 3D printing to audio technology where new varieties of music are constantly being created in response to changing social, economic
and political contexts.
Businesses in South Africa have
created machinery to improve jewellery design while reducing labour intensity
and time spent, for example. And — probably the most famous success story in
recent years — the mobile money transfer system M-Pesa is another local
innovative idea that has become a game changer in technology and business.
Universities
should examine ways of supporting the growth of the informal sector and its
formalisation through patenting innovations in order to raise more revenue.
Effective university leadership is therefore critical for honouring commitments in an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect; so is managing partnerships effectively. The payoff will be bankable ideas that attract investment.
Credit: Beatrice Muganda
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African universities are also failing to engage properly with business in the formal sector. Indeed, African academics and international organisations have expressed doom and gloom about this. [3] They cite factors such as a lack of confidence among businesses in universities being able to undertake sophisticated research and innovation; the small size of industry and business; and the mismatch between university research strengths and regional industry sectors.
Government investment
So how
can university-industry collaboration become fruitful?
A good
proportion of public financing for universities should go towards high-quality
research to attract private investment into science parks, along with
technology and business incubators in academic institutions. These initiatives
may initially be modest, only involving small and medium-sized enterprises, but
they could dramatically expand.
A good
example is the Taifa laptop project
in Kenya developed by the Nairobi Industrial
and Technological Park, a joint project between the government and the Jomo
Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. The laptop was conceived
within the Buy Kenya, Build Kenya vision, where the government works with
universities and industry to develop world-class products for the local market
and beyond. In this case, the government contracted the university to produce
laptops for Kenyan primary schools to advance digital learning.
Robust
engagement with universities in business is an urgent area for government
investment because the returns from commercialised research can raise
additional resources for funding other university programmes.
Revenue
generated from such projects should be invested in scholarships and higher
salaries for university researchers.
Banking on innovation
African
universities face an additional challenge: how to move into the innovation
sector. This can only happen if governments provide research funding, and few
African countries have honoured their commitment to invest at least one per
cent of GDP (gross domestic product) in research by 2010. [5]
There is
also an opportunity for supporting innovation in the informal sector. For
example, many African countries have embraced the use of motorcycle taxis,
which are imported at great expense from around the world. But, if they gave
proper support to engineering departments, African states could produce
motorcycles and spare parts locally, rather than relying on expensive imports.
Upon
maturity, ideas coming out of engineering departments could transition into a
business enterprise and generate massive revenue for universities. Honda is a
case in point: it sold 17 million motorcycles in the fiscal year ending in March 2014, making 1.66 trillion Japanese yen. A good proportion of the cash flow can be traced to
Africa’s informal sector.
Nigeria’s
booming Nollywood film industry is another space of digital innovation that
universities could tap into. In 2014, Nigeria’s film and music industry grew by 33 per cent. Nigerian universities could turn their arts studios into
commercial units that support the digital distribution of these products.
Part of
the problem is that university researchers and innovators rarely meet with entrepreneurs and their counterparts in the private sector.
Universities can start to change this by establishing or revamping offices that
foster partnerships and using public funds for basic infrastructure:
researchers, laboratories and equipment.
But
industry can only work with universities if sure that its interests are
protected and a return on investment guaranteed. Effective university
leadership is therefore critical for honouring commitments in an atmosphere of
trust and mutual respect; so is managing partnerships effectively. The payoff
will be bankable ideas that attract investment.
Beatrice
Muganda is director of higher education at the Partnership
for African Social and Governance Research, in Nairobi, Kenya, @PASGR_. Beatrice is an
education policy practitioner promoting partnerships for graduate teaching of
social science research and public policy.
This is
part of the Africa’s
PhD Renaissance series on higher education across the
continent, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
References
[1] Accelerating
catch-up: Tertiary education for growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (The
World Bank, 2009)
[2] A
decade of development in sub-Saharan African science, technology, engineering
and mathematics research (Elsevier and the World Bank, September
2014)
[3] Creso
M. Sá Perspective
of industry’s engagement with African universities (Association of
African Universities, No date)
[4] José
Guimón Promoting
university-industry collaboration in developing countries (The
Innovation Policy Platform, 2013)
[5] African
Innovation Outlook II (NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency,
April 2014)
This
article was originally published on SciDev.Net.
Read the original article.
Source: Scidev.net
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