African universities meet

Leonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter
UNIVERSITIES and institutions of higher learning from across Africa met in Victoria Falls to work out ways of transforming their institutions into business entities independent of centralised funding from their owners.

Participants comprised vice-chancellors, registrars and council chairpersons from 55 universities, private and state owned, drawn from the 320-member Association of African Universities (AAU).

The three-day workshop, which ended yesterday, sought to find solutions to poor governance and financial problems dogging higher learning institutions as a result of dwindling support from the authorities. Participants said poor governance and financial challenges affect research, a key component in the growth and development of a country.

The AAU secretary-general Professor Etienne Ehile, based at the association’s headquarters in Ghana, said relationship between Vice-Chancellors and management on one hand and university councils on the other were partly to blame for the poor governance.

“This workshop is a framework to look at successful governance of universities and the relationship between chairpersons of councils and Vice-Chancellors which should be key in the running of the institutions. There should be teamwork because once there’s conflict the institution suffers. This specific workshop is in collaboration with Great Zimbabwe University and we expect a lot of changes at the close of the sessions,” said Prof Ehile.

He said the association, formed in 1967, was committed to improving conditions of service for universities staff.

Great Zimbabwe University Vice-Chancellor, Prof Rungano Zvobgo, said lack of research funding was negatively impacting on the education sector and development of countries.

“Our universities are empowering people to be versatile to live and work anywhere in the world but the problem is that very little is happening in terms of research. This is because of lack of funding as owners, being governments and private organisations are failing to finance education owing to the economic challenges facing many countries. In the case of Zimbabwe, the economic sanctions are biting and as a result our researchers aren’t receiving adequate funding,’said Prof Zvobgo.

He, however, said they remained hopeful that researchers churned out from universities will be able to help the country once the economy improves.Representing universities councils, Canaan Dube who is Midlands State University council chairpersons said corporate governance was taking centre stage in the development of education and should be taken seriously.

He called for a paradigm shift in which institutions of learning moved away from depending on funding from their mother organisations and start own income generating projects to finance research.

“We’re here to discuss how universities are being run and controlled as well as share experiences especially regarding relationships between councils and management which are key to good governance. This workshop is insisting on cordial relationship. We agreed to address beyond the rule book issues where we talk about personal integrity.

“The tradition has been that financing of learning institutions comes from the mother organisation but government funding is declining. What’s emerging is that there should be a paradigm shift where institutions should turn themselves into more or less business entities. We should have synergies created by a student market where we can have mini marts or fuel stations within campus in line with the spider web philosophy where money circulates within,” he said.

Dube said this would ensure financial independence while at the same time generating funding for research and development.Universities from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Tanzania, Malawi, Sudan, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique and Nigeria are represented at the workshop.