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Ghana’s Universities and their Government: An Ambiguous Relationship
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2021
Extract
The relationship between African universities and their governments tends to be strained, whether these governments are political or military. Those in power often have little experience of higher education or understanding of its needs and there is little consensus about its goals. Political and economic insecurity provides little opportunity for “ivory tower theorizing”; low wages and inadequate resources are a poor basis for the research which needs to be done. Governments provide declining support and want a lot for their money. Universities are expected to become partly self-supporting through research contracts and charges to students, and teaching “relevant” subjects is supposed to prepare students for real jobs (which are often a future hope rather than a present reality). As beneficiaries of government cash, staff and students should not criticize or challenge government interests. Much is said about the benefits of science and engineering courses and of the wastefulness of humanities courses, ignoring the fact that governments are usually run by people with arts rather than science degrees.
- Type
- Issues in African Higher Education
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- Copyright
- Copyright © African Studies Association 1996
Footnotes
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Margaret Peil is Professor of the Sociology of West Africa at the Centre of West African Studies, Birmingham University, U.K. She taught at the University of Ghana for five years in the 1960s and has returned many times, the latest in 1994. She has written numerous books and articles on Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Zimbabwe.
References
Notes
1. An earlier version of this paper was given at the Ghana Symposium, Centre of West African Studies, Birmingham University, UK, 14 December 1994. Some of these issues are discussed for tropical Africa as a whole in Peil, M., “Academics and African Governments: A Shaky Relationship,” in Myers, D., ed., Re-Inventing the Humanities: International Perspectives. Kew, Victoria: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 1995, pp. 96–102.Google Scholar
2. Following a demand from the University Teacher Association of Ghana that professors ought to earn as much as managing directors of public corporations, there was an exchange of letters on this subject in West Africa: P.A. Twumasi, “University salaries,”, 3 July 1995, p. 1032; A. Naazie, “University salaries,” 14 August, 1995, p. 1271. The salary of a full professor is about $2330 per year, whereas managing directors earn about $7780 (West Africa 19 July 1995, p. 946). Whatever the justice of this comparison, few academics can afford to give their full time to teaching.
3. See R.A. Cline-Cole, “Contextualizing professional interaction in Anglo-American Africanist Human Geographies.” Paper presented to the Association of British Geographers, 1994.
4. Sawyer, A. 1994 “Ghana: Relations Between Government and Universities,” pp. 22–53 in Neave, G. and van Vught, F.A. (eds.) Government and Higher Education Relationships Across Three Continents: The Winds of Change. Oxford: Pergamon for the IAU Press.Google Scholar
5. Peil, M., “Ghanaians Abroad,” African Affairs 94, No. 376, pp. 345–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar