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Higher Education
in Africa
Higher Education
in Africa:

Challenges for Development,

Mobility and Cooperation

Edited by

Anne Goujon, Max Haller

and Bernadette Müller Kmet
Higher Education in Africa:
Challenges for Development, Mobility and Cooperation

Edited by Anne Goujon, Max Haller, Bernadette Müller Kmet

This book first published 2017

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2017 by Anne Goujon, Max Haller, Bernadette Müller Kmet

and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-1679-5

ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-1679-3
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction .............................................................................................. viii

Anne Goujon, Max Haller, Bernadette Müller Kmet

Part I: Higher Education in Africa: Structural Background,

Expansion and Challenges

Chapter One ................................................................................................. 2

The Development of Higher Education in Africa: Regional Trends
in a Global Perspective
Anne Goujon and Jakob Eder

Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 24

Higher Education and Academic Research in Africa: The Social-
Structural, Cultural and Institutional Context
Max Haller

Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 63

The African Union Higher Education Harmonization Strategy and Context
from the Bologna Process
Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis

Part II: Societal Functions and Management of Higher Education

and Academic Research

Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 82

Private and Public Universities in Kenya and Tanzania:
Missions and Visions
Bernadette Müller Kmet

Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 107

Employability Skills Indicators as Perceived by Employers in the Free
State Province of South Africa
Petronella Jonck and Reneé Minnaar
vi Table of Contents

Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 128

Managing Academic Research for Policy Impact in Ghana:
The Missing Ingredient
George K. T. Oduro and Georgina Y. Oduro

Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 145

The Challenges of Higher Education Finance in Ethiopia:
The Case of Cost-Sharing
Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis

Part III: Mobility of Graduates within and out of Africa:

Gains and Losses

Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 166

Coming Full Circle? The Return Migration and Job Hunting Experiences
of Ghanaian and Cameroonian Graduates from German Universities
Julia Boger

Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 188

Where Have All the Researchers Gone? Understanding the Role
of Mobility in Academic Careers in Mozambique
Måns Fellesson and Paula Mählck

Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 213

The Current and Prospective Brain Drain in Mozambique
Inês Macamo Raimundo

Part IV: North-South and South-South Cooperation

Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 236

Promoting Peace and Stability through Exported Postgraduate Education
in Ethiopia
Paula-Louise Macphee and Ann Fitz-Gerald

Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 257

Action Learning in a Real-World Setting in Uganda: Empowering
Students to Explore their Future Roles as Responsible Actors
for Sustainable Development
Lorenz Probst, Verena Pflug, Christiane Brandenburg,
Thomas Guggenberger, Axel Mentler and Maria Wurzinger
 Higher Education in Africa vii

Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 279

Inter-African Cross-Cultural Dialogue: Accounts of South-South Dialogue
between the American University in Cairo (AUC) and African
Universities
Mohamed I. Fahmy Menza and Ahmad A. ElZorkani

Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 302

Negotiating Forms of Capital in the Social Field of International Doctoral
Research Training between Europe and Africa
Christine Scherer

Contributors ............................................................................................. 335

 INTRODUCTION1

The relevance of higher education and scientific research for economic,

social and political development is beyond doubt. Without them, the
industrial and political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries would
not have happened. But also the impressive catch-up of the state-socialist
countries in eastern Europe and of Japan in the 20th century, or the recent
spectacular economic growth in many south-east Asian countries, were
based on a massive upgrading of the educational level of their populations,
including a strong expansion of the tertiary sector. Africa, and in
particularly sub-Saharan Africa, is still lagging behind all other major
world regions both in terms of general and higher education. While in
most other countries and macro-regions of the global South, about one-
third of the working-age population have attained some upper secondary
and post-secondary education, this proportion is only between one-sixth
and one-fourth in Sub-Saharan Africa; it is comparably high only in
northern Africa and the Republic of South Africa and its small
neighboring countries.
The debate about investing in higher education in sub-Saharan African
countries was controversial for some time. Most researchers and
international donors argued for a sequential development of schooling,
prioritizing the lower levels (primary followed by secondary education) at
the earlier stage of development—where a large number of African
countries are—before moving on to higher education at the late stage of
development as exemplified by the success stories of countries in eastern
Asia (World Bank 2003; Psacharopoulos 1994, 2004; Petrakis and
Stamatakis 2002). On the other hand, cross-country comparisons revealed
that the presence of the right mix of skilled resources corresponding to the

1
The editors would like to thank the following institutions and persons: The
Vienna Institute of Demography (Austrian Academy of Sciences), the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the University of Graz for providing
extra-funding and in-kind contributions that allowed us to complete this work; Lisa
Janisch for organizing efficiently language editing; Daisy Brickhill, Kathryn
Platzer, Werner Richter, and Matthew Cantele for language editing; and Edith
Lanser for helping with formatting in the last stage of the book production. Thanks
to all. All remaining errors are ours.
 Higher Education in Africa ix

need of the labor market and the economy largely explains the advancement
of economic development in many settings (World Bank 2008, Un 2012).
Furthermore, some researchers, while not contesting the need to invest in
basic education, contended that higher education needs to be promoted as
well even if it does not address large segments of the population. For
instance, Bloom, Canning and Chan (2006) point out that the development
of higher education could push forward change and innovation, just as
much as capacity building in many of the poverty-stricken countries. It is
especially key to promote faster technological catchup, in particular if
many of those students in higher education graduate in science and
technology—to supply the scientists, engineers and technicians that are
necessary for the knowledge economy. Also, higher education provides
the opportunity to acquire competences that are crucial to increase private,
but also social and economic returns such as adaptability, team work,
communication skills and the motivation for continuous learning. While
both enrollment in higher education and the share of the productive labor
force with tertiary education are still very low in most sub-Saharan
African countries, some gain can be observed and is projected to continue
as a result of increases in demand and increases in the school-age
population.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s population will most likely reach one billion in
2017 (United Nations 2015), accounting for 13 per cent of the world
population. Its population is the youngest of all world regions, with 43 per
cent of the population under the age of 15, 54 per cent under 20 and 63 per
cent under 24. The share of the population in the age of attending higher
education—set at 18–23 years—includes 11.5 per cent of the population in
2015 and will remain constant until 2035, which means, at the rapid
population growth rates in this sub-region, that this population will
increase by 50 per cent from its 2015 level (110 million) until 2035 (183
million), and will have doubled by 2050 (235 million).
Rapid population growth, together with the rising demand for higher
education largely explains why the number of universities and colleges has
been increasing very fast in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2009, a World Bank
report estimated that between 1990 and 2007, the number of public
universities had almost doubled (from 100 to 200) while the number of
private institutions was increased twenty-fold from 24 to 468. In 2016, the
ranking web of universities counts 862 universities in sub-Saharan Africa,
with more than half of them being located in just four countries: Nigeria
x Introduction

(223), South Africa (124), Kenya (67) and Tanzania (51).2 Brought in
relation to the population in the countries, we find that 8 is the median
number of universities per 1000 population aged 18-23 in sub-Saharan
Africa. Some countries have a higher number of post-secondary
institutions, such as Somalia, Ghana, South Africa, and Botswana. This
growth shows the vividness of the tertiary sector (comprising university
and non-university institutions). However, such an explosion does not go
without problems which are mainly related to the quality of the education
provided in those institutions. While challenges are found both at the level
of public and private institutions, the lack of appropriate regulatory bodies
makes it harder to control the quality of teaching in the private sector, i.e.
whether all education providers meet national and international standards
—this is particularly true for higher education institutions in Francophone
Africa (Saint, Lao and Materu 2014)
Notwithstanding the growth in the number of institutions, sub-Saharan
Africa still has the lowest tertiary gross enrollment ratio in the world—
about 9 per cent—compared for instance to 31 per cent in northern Africa
or south-east Asia. Most countries actually have enrollment ratios in the
tertiary sector even below that figure. This is particularly noticeable in
countries such as Tanzania or Niger where enrollment ratios are below 5
per cent. South Africa, Cape Verde and Botswana are the few countries
with higher enrollments in the tertiary sector, with over 20 per cent, and in
Mauritius no less than 40 per cent of the relevant population are enrolled
in tertiary education programs. Mauritius is in fact the showcase for how
education, together with a national family planning program, can contribute
to reduction in fertility allowing for an economic and development boom.
This book does not pretend to be exhaustive and to cover all issues
related to higher education in sub-Saharan Africa3 but tries to go beyond
the issues that are normally tackled by academic work on higher education
in sub-Saharan Africa, taking the look of practitioners at some issues that
might be less known. The general demographic and statistical picture is
laid out in Part I where the chapter by Anne Goujon & Jakob Eder
presents the figures regarding the evolution of population shares with
different levels of educational attainment, showing the small niche
occupied by higher education in most African countries in comparison

2
Those are estimates based largely on the 2016 ranking web of universities.
http://www.webometrics.info/en [21/04/2016] and searches in Wikipedia for those
countries where no universities were found in the former source, i.e. Chad, Eritrea,
Guinea-Bissau, Congo, Reunion and São Tomé.
3
For those interested into a comprehensive analysis, we would recommend to read
for instance the work of Teferra and Alpbach (2003).
 Higher Education in Africa xi

with other world sub-regions, particularly among the working-age

population. The authors also show that there are marked differences
between countries, genders and sub-regions in sub-Saharan Africa; the
profiles of countries regarding higher education are widely diverging. This
is an indication that education follows a diffusion process where
imbalances increase at first within regions to converge again later, when a
certain level has been reached. Max Haller first outlines the development
of higher education in Africa and then looks through a sociological lens at
four specific structural and institutional challenges that African higher
education and academic research are faced with. They include the function
of higher education in the reproduction of social inequality, the linguistic
diversity of sub-Saharan Africa, the dominance of European languages in
the higher education system and the potential conflict between western and
African values of education. He highlights the necessary improvements in
the quality of education but also in the involvement of the north, and
particularly of Europe in the development of higher education in Africa.
Europe and sub-Saharan Africa are actually at the center of the third and
last chapter in this section by Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis. He
thoroughly studies two processes of regional cooperation: the Bologna
process within the European Union and the African Union Higher
Education Harmonization strategy. While the cooperation framework of
the former is clearly been used as model for developing the latter, the
articles clearly point out that the African context should be taken into
consideration.
Part II of the book reports on diverse experience in higher education in
several countries of the continent—Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana
and Ethiopia—and highlights the main challenges for the successful
reform and expansion of higher education. In her chapter, Bernadette
Müller Kmet looks at the differences between public and private
universities in Kenya and Tanzania. She shows that private universities
have been mushrooming in both countries and argues that a simplifying
confrontation between public and private universities in terms of funding
sources, governance, regulations, quality, and outcomes is insufficient. As
a first step toward a better understanding she carries out a detailed analysis
of mission statements adopted by public and private universities in Kenya
and Tanzania. She finds that significant differences exist in this regard
both between the countries and between universities. Petronella Jonck
and Reneé Minaar take the perspective of the employers who want to
recruit recent graduates from higher education in South Africa. This point
of view is interesting and actually gets more and more attention by
economists and education specialists as a way to evaluate the quality and
xii Introduction

the adequacy of education in a country with regard to the needs of the

labor market. The South African context has also witnessed the
burgeoning of private institutions of higher education in response to the
pressure from a fast-evolving labor market. The authors conclude that the
key competences in the eyes of employers were interpersonal skills,
personal and career management and lastly academic skills. Not all of
these skills might always be taught sufficiently in institutions of higher
education. George K.T. Oduro and Georgina Y. Oduro in their paper
study the research activities at university level in Ghana. They examine the
missing gaps that are relevant for explaining differences in academic staff
involvement in research activities and the challenges associated with
supporting research and managing research facilities in Ghanaian
universities. They show that the academic research conducted at
universities should be made more visible to the public and to the various
stakeholders, particularly policy makers. The conclusion from this chapter
would possibly be relevant for other countries. Another overarching topic
is that of higher education financing, tackled in the chapter by Emnet
Tadesse Woldegiorgis. He is studying the case of Ethiopia, where—like
in many other eastern African countries, such as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania
or Rwanda—the government resorted to cost-sharing programs to finance
higher education. The student loans accompanying these cost-sharing
programs face a big challenge at the time of cost recovery as the tracking
systems through employment or bank records are rarely accurate.
Part III tackles the issue of mobility in and out of Africa that was
already touched upon in Part I, in the chapter on the harmonization of
higher education systems in Africa. As noted also in Chapter 2 by Max
Haller, the brain drain is nowadays mostly considered to be a temporary
issue and the remittances coming out of migration tend to greatly
contribute to the development of education and in fact to the general
development of the country in question. However, the macro level hides
many individual experiences. It is the merit of the chapter by Julia Boger
to show that the outcomes of job-hunting in one’s home country after
graduating from a study program in Germany can differ greatly, as in the
different nationality contexts considered here, such as that of Ghanaians
and Cameroonians. Måns Fellesson and Paula Mählck report about the
mobility and career development among PhD graduates at Eduardo
Mondlane University in Mozambique which has received support from the
Swedish development agencies ever since 1990. He finds actually low
mobility levels among PhD graduates, implying a reduced brain drain for
the country, but also less exposure of graduates to wider research
networks. The last chapter in Part III also relates to Mozambique; here,
 Higher Education in Africa xiii

Inês Macamo Raimundo looks at the issue of students leaving

Mozambique and tries to quantify the phenomenon with a prospective
view.
The fourth and last part of the book looks at cooperation programs that
have been in place between the North and South, but also between the
South and the South. While the programs presented in Part IV cannot be
generalized for the whole continent, they provide a window on the wealth
of collaborative experiences that have been going on. Paula-Louise
Macphee and Ann Fitz-Gerald discuss the experience of an MSc
program in Security Sector Management, developed at Cranfield
University in the United Kingdom, which was “exported” to Ethiopia. On
the whole the export was successful though it had to face some obvious
challenges in terms of compatibility with realities on the ground. The
authors note that to be more widely useful, such a program requires
intense monitoring and post-evaluation. Not so different is the experience
exposed in the chapter by Lorenz Probst et al. about a three-week
interdisciplinary course on organic agriculture organized jointly by four
universities in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and Vienna. The main
idea of the course was to promote societal change by training the future
actors of sustainable development. The authors actually show that
interdisciplinary research is difficult to implement in the rather
compartmentalized sectors of higher education in Africa. Another example
of a South-South—or Global South—collaboration is the one reported by
Mohamed I. Fahmy Menza and Ahmad A. ElZorkani which takes the
form of a dialogue between students and teachers at the American
University in Cairo and students and teachers from several other
universities in Africa. This initiative clearly has an educational component
in trying to foster dialogue and teaching the existence of different opinions
and the tolerance that should be developed toward other opinions even
when influenced by different political, cultural or religious settings.
Christina Scherer’s chapter deals with collaboration and partnership in
higher education between Europe and Africa in the framework of the
Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies, a doctoral
program aimed at students from Africa. Beyond the challenges, the author
concludes positively that “European higher education collaboration with
Africa is by no means a new field for old paths of development aid but a
balanced collaborative endeavor.”
As already mentioned, this book does not pretend to be exhaustive in
its presentation of the field of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa. Its
focus is rather on some general trends, on selected topics and several
revealing cases. The contributions all emerged from a workshop that was
xiv Introduction

organized by the Editors of this volume in collaboration with the

administrative staff of the Vienna Institute of Demography, where the
meeting took place on June 19–21, 20144. The workshop was not only
interesting for the wealth of experience that was presented5—not every
contribution resulted in a paper in this book—but also for the dialogue that
followed the presentations when researchers or practitioners from the
North and the South were able to compare their experiences, hence
enacting a global dialogue. Indeed, global comparative research,
collaboration and dialogue in the field of higher education appear to be
important and promising avenues not only to enhance the development of
higher education in sub-Saharan Africa but also to widen and enrich
academic teaching and social scientific research in Europe.

References
Bloom, David, David Canning, and Kevin Chan. 2006. Higher Education
and Economic Development in Africa. Washington, DC: The World
Bank.
Petrakis, Panagiotis E., and Dimitrios Stamatakis. 2002. “Growth and
educational levels: a comparative analysis.” Economics of Education
Review 21:513–521.
Psacharopoulos, George. 1994. “Return to education: A global update.”
World Development 22:1325–1343.
—. 2004. “Return to education: A further update.” Education Economics
12:111–134.
Saint, William, Christine Lao, and Peter Materu. 2014. “Legal
Frameworks for Tertiary Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Quest
for Institutional Responsiveness.” World Bank Working Paper No.
175. Washington DC: The World Bank.
Teferra, Damtew, and Philip G. Altbach, eds. 2003. African Higher
Education: An International Reference Handbook. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Un, Leang. 2012. “A comparative study of education and development in
Cambodia and Uganda from their civil wars to the present.” PhD
Thesis, Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR).
United Nations. 2015. World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision.

4
Note that most data presented in the chapters correspond to the time of writing in
2014.
5
The programme is available online: www.oeaw.ac.at/vid/events/event-details
/article/higher-education-mobility-and-migration-in-and-out-of-africa/
[accessed on 30/06/2016].
 Higher Education in Africa xv

New York, NY: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social

Affairs, Population Division.
World Bank. 1993. The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public
Policy. New York: Oxford University Press.
—. 2003. World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for
Poor People. Washington, DC: World Bank.
—. 2008. The Road Not to Travel: Education Reform in the Middle East
and North Africa. Washington D.C.: World Bank.
—. 2009. Accelerating Catch-up: Tertiary Education for Growth in Sub-
Saharan Africa. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.
 PART I:

HIGHER EDUCATION IN AFRICA:

STRUCTURAL BACKGROUND,
EXPANSION AND CHALLENGES
 CHAPTER ONE

THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHER

EDUCATION IN AFRICA:
REGIONAL TRENDS IN A GLOBAL
PERSPECTIVE

ANNE GOUJON1 AND JAKOB EDER2

Abstract
Based on global harmonized data on educational attainment by age and
sex estimated for the year 2010, the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography
and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU) has reconstructed
past levels of education back to 1970 and projected those levels until 2100
according to several scenarios (Lutz, Butz, and K.C. 2014). This chapter
will present a quantitative analysis of several indicators to show the
overall development of education in Africa, and that of higher education in
particular. This is achieved by analyzing several indicators related to
population shares by levels of education, mean years of schooling, the
gender gap and the change across cohorts in the recent past. We will look
at potential future changes and the linkages between population and
development in higher education. Overall, and not surprisingly, Africa is
very heterogeneous and the share of the working-age population with
higher education is low. However, there has been an increase among
younger cohorts and the gap between men and women has been closing in

1
Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA,
VID/OEAW, WU), Vienna Institute of Demography/Austrian Academy of
Sciences, Vienna, Austria and World Population Program/International Institute
for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria.
2
Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA,
VID/OEAW, WU), Vienna Institute of Demography/Austrian Academy of
Sciences, Vienna, Austria and Institute for Urban and Regional Research/Austrian
Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria.
 The Development of Higher Education in Africa 3

recent years. The projections show that fast population growth in many
countries of the continent might bring about large increases in the size of
the cohorts to be enrolled in post-secondary education in the future,
implying substantial investments in the higher education sector.

Introduction
The development of higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa has been and
is still suffering from two interlinked handicaps. In a nutshell, the situation
of the higher education sector on the one hand mirrors that of other
education sectors where large segments of the population in working ages
still have no or low levels of education. On the other hand, because most
African societies are not yet knowledge economies, but rather largely
focused on the agricultural and industrial sectors, it is difficult for
graduates to find employment. This is the case principally for those trained
in the humanities, because the public service and the governmental sector
are unable to absorb all graduates. These phenomena reinforce each other
in a vicious cycle that education and other enabling factors could turn into a
virtuous cycle in the future. At the same time, African countries have long
since entered an education transition and “much of Africa is at the early
stage of “massification” of higher education” (Teferra 2013, xv) which is
caused partly by a compelling social pressure to increase enrollment in
higher education, but also population growth. The purpose of this chapter is
to quantitatively frame the development of the education sector in Africa
during the last fifty years in comparison to other world regions. It also looks
at differences between countries and concretely addresses the issues of
population growth and development of higher education, as well as the
influence of higher education on population growth.
This chapter focuses on human capital, defined as the stock of the adult
population at different levels of education; it is the translation of schooling
enrollment and completion statistics with a time lag. Since the 1950s,
educational attainment in most countries has been measured using
censuses at regular intervals—usually every 10 years. However, this has
not always been the case, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the last 30
years, only 33 out of the 50 countries have conducted three censuses
which would be considered standard—in the 1980s (in the 1985–1994
period), in the 1990s (in the 1995–2004 period) and in the 2000s (in the
4 Chapter One

2005–2014 period).3 Even when census data were collected, that did not
mean they were accessible. For instance, IPUMS,4 a project located at the
University of Minnesota dedicated to collecting and distributing census
data from around the world could only collect data from five out of the 33
series of three censuses mentioned above (Burkina Faso, Kenya, Malawi,
Mali, Zambia).5 IPUMS has managed partial coverage (of one or two
censuses) in a few more countries, as well as a few older African censuses
of the 1970s. Furthermore, levels of educational attainment are not always
available, or if they are, they may not be in sufficient detail to allow for
coherent categorization according to the International Standard Classification
of Education (ISCED). The lack of data not only affects information on
levels of education, and as registration systems (for births and deaths,
among other things) do not properly function in many countries, some data
have been collected outside of the realm of censuses through several
household surveys: primarily Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS),
and additionally Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), Living
Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) and Health and Demographic
Surveillance System (HDSS). These surveys are extremely useful for
supplementing the deficient population data collection system. They also
often include data on the highest level of education and the grades
completed by all members of households. However, there are two main
deficiencies: the first one is inherent to the type of data collection, as
surveys try to be being representative without always succeeding. This is
particularly true in Sub-Saharan Africa where the more remote places,
ethnic/religious minorities, or poverty-stricken households living in slums
are not always covered (Falkingham and Namazie 2002). These areas are,
generally speaking, populated by less educated groups and hence the
surveys often tend to overestimate levels of educational attainment. The
same is true for the elderly population above the age of 50. Even more
pertinent to this chapter, post-secondary education in DHS is aggregated
into one level with no possibility of distinguishing between the different
levels of educational attainment at post-secondary level: for instance,
vocational education, undergraduate or graduate studies (Bauer et al.
2012).
Most of the data used in this chapter originate from back and forward
projections carried out at the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and

3
The data on all censuses carried out in the world are available from the United
Nations Statistics Division: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sources/
census/censusdates.htm [14/01/2016].
4
Integrated Public Use Microdata Series.
5
https://international.ipums.org/international-action/samples [14/01/2016].
 The Development of Higher Education in Africa 5

Global Human Capital (WIC 2015). The back projections reconstruct the
shares of the population by educational attainment from 2010 back to
1970, taking into account the hierarchical nature of education and that it is
mostly acquired at young ages. Hence by knowing the structure at one
point in time, one can basically reconstruct the past taking into
consideration three parameters that influence the estimation: education
transition at schooling ages (up to the age 34),6 mortality differentials—as
education is a strong factor of heterogeneity in mortality (Huisman et al.
2005; Hummer and Lariscy 2011)—and education differentials in the
population of immigrants. The methodology for the reconstruction is
available from Lutz et al. (2007) and Speringer et al. (2015) and the one
for the projection, centered on expert-based modeling, from Lutz, Butz,
and K.C. (2014) and K.C. et al. (2013). The end product which we will be
using throughout the chapter is the age, sex and education structure
(according to six education categories: no education, incomplete primary,
primary completed, completed lower secondary, completed upper
secondary and completed post-secondary education) for the population of
171 countries—including most countries in Africa7—from 1970 to 2100
(projections according to a set of seven scenarios) in 5-year steps.8

Mean Years of Schooling (MYS) in Africa

Overall, the population in Africa has low levels of education. The
indicator of MYS9 is biased as it encompasses both sexes, and all age
groups—from young people who recently exited the school system to the
elderly who left school a long time ago—in one indicator. Hence, the
overall MYS shown in Figure 1.1 is quite low, below 6 years in all of
Africa, which corresponds more or less to the average duration of primary
education (4 to 6 years in most education systems). The indicator reveals
also that the regions are quite homogeneous, with most regions being
within ±1 of this average. These regions include eastern, western, middle,
and northern Africa, while the outlier is the southern African region where

6
Detailed data have shown that in developing countries school transitions,
particularly those to higher levels of education, can occur until late ages but
overwhelmingly do so before age 35.
7
The dataset is limited to countries with more than 100,000 inhabitants in 2010;
data on education were not available for the following African countries: Angola,
Botswana, Mayotte, Eritrea, Djibouti, Libya, Mauritania and Togo.
8
Data are available from www.wittgensteincentre.org/dataexplorer [14/01/2016].
9
Read Potanþoková (2014) for details on MYS calculation methodology and the
challenges involved.
6 Chapter One

the population over age 15 has on average 9 years of schooling which

corresponds to the achievement of lower secondary education—often
equivalent to compulsory education. The lowest MYS are found in eastern
and western Africa which are part of Sahelian Africa, one of the poorest
regions in the world with strong climatic variations that are, together with
political instability, the greatest obstacles for food security and poverty
reduction.

Figure 1.1: MYS of population aged 15+ in Africa and sub-regions of Africa, 2010

10
9,0
9

7 6,5
Mean years of schooling

5,8 5,8
6
5,1 5,1
5

0
Africa Eastern Africa Western Africa Middle Africa Northern Africa Southern Africa

Source: WIC (2015)

Figure 1.2 reveals that the regional data hide the diversity of settings in the
regions. The MYS of the 15+ population in Nigeria (6.5 years) in western
Africa is four times higher than in Niger (1.5 years). The deviation is the
same in eastern Africa where the MYS in Mozambique (2.4 years) is four
times lower than that in Zimbabwe (9.7 years). While the difference is
smaller in the other regions, it is still considerable in northern and middle
Africa. Figure 1.2 basically tells us that regional data have little meaning
in this matter.

Figure 1.2 (next page): MYS of population aged 15+, Africa, 2010
Source: WIC (2015)
 The Development of Higher Education in Africa 7

Nigeria
Ghana
Cape Verde
Gambia
Cote d'Ivoire
Western Africa

Sierra Leone
Guinea-Bissau
Benin
Senegal
Guinea
Burkina Faso
Liberia
Mali
Niger
Southern Africa

South Africa
Namibia
Swaziland
Lesotho
Algeria
Northern Africa

Tunisia
Egypt
Morocco
Sudan
Equatorial Guinea
Gabon
Congo
Middle Africa

DR Congo
Cameroon
Sao Tome & Principe
Central African Rep.
Chad
Zimbabwe
Reunion
Kenya
Zambia
Maurius
Tanzania
Eastern Africa

Uganda
Malawi
Comoros
Rwanda
Madagascar
Somalia
Burundi
Ethiopia
Mozambique
Africa

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Mean years of schooling
8 Chapter One

Figure 1.3: Standard average deviation in MYS in 2010 from regional average, in 3
clusters, population in age group 25-59

Cluster 1: MYS 2010 - below 7.7 years

3,0
Standard Average deviation from

2,5
Eastern Africa
regional average

2,0
Middle Africa
1,5
Northern Africa
1,0 Western Africa
0,5 Southern Asia
0,0
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Cluster 2: MYS 2010 - between 7.7 to 10 years

3,0
Standard Average deviation from

Eastern Asia
2,5
South-east Asia
regional average

2,0
Western Asia
1,5
Carribean
1,0 Central America
0,5 South America
0,0 Southern Africa
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Cluster 3: MYS 2010 - 10 years and above

3,0
Standard Average deviation from

2,5
Central Asia
regional average

2,0
Eastern Europe
1,5
Northern Europe
1,0 Southern Europe
0,5 Western Europe
0,0
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Source: Authors’ calculations based on WIC (2015)

 The Development of Higher Education in Africa 9

A different approach of looking at the same issue in a more global context

is to show the patterns of regional development in terms of standard
deviation of countries to the regional average for MYS in the 1970–2010
period shown in Figure 1.3. It confirms that the diffusion of education
follows the same patterns as other individual characteristics such as
income or health (Wils and Goujon 1998). At low levels of educational
development—measured according to the criteria below 7.7 years of MYS
in 2010—the standard deviation is presently increasing between countries,
which is the result of different speeds of educational development towards
increasing educational attainment. This cluster (1) includes all sub-regions
in Africa except southern Africa, which belongs to the intermediate stage
in the typology (cluster 2), with mixed patterns of deviation increasing or
decreasing over the period of observation. Most Asian and Latin American
sub-regions belong to this cluster (2) as well. At higher education levels—
categorized as MYS above 10 years in 2010 (cluster 3)—the deviation
starts declining everywhere as shown for Europe, where countries have
converged towards similar levels of educational attainment and the
differences between countries in the same regions are declining strongly.
As mentioned already, the MYS indicator encompasses all age
segments of the population. Hence, it is not very informative similarly to
all averages. For this reason in the next section we will focus on levels of
educational attainment of the working-age population, which represents
the potential human capital.

Levels of Educational Attainment of the Working-Age

Population
In the following, we narrow the population down to the ages 20–64 as
these individuals are potentially direct contributors to the economy. The
maps in Figures 1.4a and 1.4b reveal many similarities between the MYS
data and the share of the population with higher education, as countries
with overall low or high levels of schooling are mostly those with low or
high shares with higher education. This seems logical but it does not
always occur. For instance, in India in the 1970s and 1980s dual societies
coexisted: one with very low and one with very high education. This also
corresponds to the case of Nigeria where the share with higher education is
much larger than one would assume from the MYS. In many other
countries, the maps reveal the diffusion of education, with progress to
higher education happening more easily when a certain general level of
education has been acquired in the population. However, this is not the
case for Kenya, which shows the opposite picture of a country with quite
10 Chapter One

high MYS but a low share with higher education, a similar phenomenon
can be seen in Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and in most countries in southern
Africa.
In Africa overall, and in most regions, the large majority of the
working-age population has primary education or less (Table 1.1). This
share is almost 80% in eastern Africa and around 70% in middle and
western Africa. In southern Africa, this less educated population makes up
one-third of the working-age population and in northern Africa just over
half (53%). Compared with other world regions, including Asia, Africa
clearly shows a trend towards low education levels beyond primary
education. Only south-central Asia (including the less educated countries
such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, and some states in India) exhibits
similarly low educational attainment.

Figure 1.4a: MYS of the population 15+ (in years)

Mean years of schooling 2010

>9
> 7 to 9
> 5 to 7
> 3 to 5
≤3
No data

Source: Wigenstein Centre

Geometry: EUROSTAT
0 500 1.000 2.000 Kilometers
Cartography: Jakob Eder, ÖAW/VID DataLab

Source: WIC (2015)

 The Development of Higher Education in Africa 11

Figure 1.4b: Share of the population 20-64 with higher education

Share of persons aged 20 to 64

with higher educaon 2010
> 10.0
> 7.5 to 10.0
> 5.0 to 7.5
> 2.5 to 5.0
≤ 2.5
No data

Source: Wigenstein Centre

Geometry: EUROSTAT
0 500 1.000 2.000 Kilometers
Cartography: Jakob Eder, ÖAW/VID DataLab

Source: WIC (2015)

As to post-secondary education, it is below 10% in most regions of Africa

with the exception of northern Africa. At country level, less than 10% of
the working-age population in 48 countries have higher education and
there are only seven countries where 10% or more of the population aged
group 20–64 had post-secondary education in 2010, mostly in northern
Africa (Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia), Reunion (an overseas department of
France), Nigeria and Swaziland. In the late 1980s, of all the states of Sub-
Saharan Africa, Nigeria was identified by the World Bank as the country
where tertiary education could best develop in a coherent and efficient
way (World Bank 1988). Amaghionyeodiwe and Osinubi (2012) showed
that subsequently the country’s university system did not develop as
rationally as expected, with overall growth rates exceeding by far the
policy guidelines set by the government, and at the expense of quality,
12 Chapter One

particularly during the military regime of the 1990s. When democracy was
restored, the goals regarding higher education—to expand enrollment and
improve educational quality—were constrained by the growing lack of
trained lecturers and professors.

Table 1.1: Population 20-64 by levels of education, sub-regions and

regions, 2010

Level of educational attainment

Primary
Region / No Prim Lower Upper Post-
incomp
Sub-region education ary secondary secondary secondary
lete
Africa 34% 13% 17% 13% 17% 6%
Eastern
32% 21% 24% 11% 10% 3%
Africa
Middle
21% 21% 21% 22% 12% 4%
Africa
Southern
6% 13% 13% 32% 31% 5%
Africa
Western
45% 8% 15% 9% 16% 8%
Africa
Northern
36% 7% 10% 12% 25% 11%
Africa
Asia 17% 5% 20% 26% 21% 12%
Eastern Asia 4% 0% 21% 42% 19% 13%
South-
central Asia 34% 8% 15% 12% 21% 10%
South-
eastern Asia 6% 11% 29% 18% 23% 13%
Western
Asia 8% 7% 27% 13% 26% 18%

Latin
6% 13% 21% 18% 26% 15%
America a
Northern
1% 0% 3% 6% 51% 39%
America
Europe 1% 1% 6% 17% 52% 23%
Oceania 2% 3% 10% 15% 40% 31%
World 15% 6% 17% 21% 26% 14%
a
Including the Caribbean
Source: WIC (2015)
 The Development of Higher Education in Africa 13

In order to disentangle the earlier and most recent changes, in the next
section we will compare the share with higher education in the young and
old working-age populations—dividing them arbitrarily into 20–39 and 40–
64 years old. Men and women are represented separately in Figure 1.5.
Comparing the two age groups leads to surprising results. First of all, while
in a large majority of African countries younger cohorts are more educated
than older cohorts, this is not the case everywhere and in 16 countries, the
share of the population with higher education is lower among the 20–39 than
among the 40–64 year olds. Figure 1.5 reveals that this is mostly the case
among men. While the younger generation of women of working age seems
to be more educated than the older one with only a few exceptions,10 the
opposite is true for men in a majority of countries: younger cohorts seem to
have had less access to higher education than older ones.11
This worsening of conditions for men is not unique, and has been
found in other settings: in OECD countries—DiPrete and Buchmann
(2013) show convincingly that the reversal of the gender gap in college
enrollment and university degree completion had already occurred by the
1980s in many countries. This was also the case in Latin America,
however it has been much less documented for Africa. One explanation
could be that, like in Europe, discouraged male students withdraw from
education to enter the job market because of disillusionment regarding
employment prospects and the monetary returns of higher education. As
shown by Fortin et al. in the United States (2015), men tend to have career
plans for occupations early on in their school life, which often do not
require advanced degrees. Moreover, several reports show that in Africa,
the young who do have some education are more likely to be unemployed.
In Africa, unemployment rates tend to be higher among university
graduates than the uneducated or less educated, and in middle-income
compared to low-income countries. However, unemployment rates also
affect more women than men and are particularly high in northern African
countries where actually the increase between the two cohorts was the
strongest for men (AfDB et al. 2012). The mismatch between qualification
and employment opportunities is therefore part of the explanation but not
the only reason.

10
In Namibia, South Africa, Gabon and Congo (sorted from high to low shares in
post-secondary education for the age group 20–39), there was a higher share of
women with higher education among older cohorts compared to younger ones.
11
In Mayotte, Djibouti, Eritrea, Burundi, Lesotho, Chad, Sudan, Morocco,
Gambia, Egypt, Libya, Reunion, Ethiopia, Cote d’Ivoire, Tunisia, Algeria (sorted
from high to low), there was a higher share of men with higher education among
the younger cohorts compared to the older ones.
 14 Chapter One

Figure 1.5: Share of men and women with higher education, 20–39 and 40–64 age
groups, 2010, all African countries

0,25

0,2
Share higher education in age group 40-64

Swaziland Egypt
Congo
0,15
Nigeria

Reunion

0,1

Egypt

Libya
0,05

Algeria

Tunisia

0
0 0,05 0,1 0,15 0,2 0,25
Share higher educaon in age group 20-39

Women Men Trendline (Women) Trendline (Men)

Note: Both trend lines are based on power regression models.

Source: WIC (2015)

While gender gaps in education were frequent in the past, they are now
more likely to occur at the lowest levels of educational attainment, which
are bottlenecks when levels of education are low. At higher education
levels, the gender gaps tend to be less present. Measured by the share of
the population aged 25–29 with post-secondary education, women were
lagging 20 years behind men in 1990, meaning that the share of women
with higher education in 1990 was equivalent to that of men in 1970
 The Development of Higher Education in Africa 15

(approximately 3%). In 2010, this gap was down to 10 years, meaning that
the share of women with higher education in 2010 was equivalent to that
of men in 2000 (approximately 7%). At the national level, most countries
experienced a reduction in the gender gap, sometimes even moving
towards its inversion, as shown in the previous section. However, in a few
countries the gap was actually increasing. This happened where enrollment
in higher education was extremely low for both men and women, and the
increase occurred first within the male population before including
women. This is the case for countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso,
Cameroon, the Comoros, Malawi, Niger and Zimbabwe. In some
countries, like Nigeria, the increase for both sexes has been substantial, but
at a faster pace for men, especially in the late 1980s.

The Future
The projections by levels of education present different futures of the
population of Africa. In Figure 1.6, we show the population pyramids of
the African continent for 2060 according to three different scenarios of
educational development (out of the seven scenarios developed): Trend,
Fast Track and Constant Enrollment Rate. According to the Trend
scenario, which takes into consideration the present situation and the most
likely future in view of national and global trajectories, the spread of
higher education in 2060 could reach 17% of the working-age population
(20–64) of Africa—from 6% in 2010—with equal shares of men and
women. This higher-education share will be much lower if we consider the
Constant Enrollment Rate scenario, which freezes enrollment rates at the
level observed in the latest year of observation (around 2010) into the
future. There the share of the population with higher education would not
exceed 7% in Africa by 2060, with a gap of 3 percentage points between
men—8%—and women—5%. In the case of the Fast Track scenario,
where the trend is accelerated, as a result of important investments in the
education sector in Africa, the share of the population of Africa with
higher education would increase to 51%, with perfect equality between
men and women.

Figure 1.6 (next page). Age and education pyramid of the population of Africa in
2010, and in 2060 according to 3 scenarios
Source: WIC (2015)
16 Chapter One

2010 (base-year) 2060 (Trend scenario)

100+ 100+
95 to 99 95 to 99
90 to 94 90 to 94
85 to 89 85 to 89
80 to 84 80 to 84
75 to 79 75 to 79
70 to 74 70 to 74
65 to 69 65 to 69
60 to 64 60 to 64
55 to 59 55 to 59
50 to 54 50 to 54
45 to 49 45 to 49
40 to 44 40 to 44
35 to 39 35 to 39
30 to 34 30 to 34
25 to 29 25 to 29
20 to 24 20 to 24
15 to 19 15 to 19
10 to 14 10 to 14
5 to 9 5 to 9
0 to 4 0 to 4
120 80 40 0 40 80 120 120 80 40 0 40 80 120
Men [in millions] Women Men [in millions] Women
Total populaon: 1.022 billion Total populaon: 2.216 billion

2060 (Constant Enrollment Rate scenario) 2060 (Fast Track scenario)

100+ 100+
95 to 99 95 to 99
90 to 94 90 to 94
85 to 89 85 to 89
80 to 84 80 to 84
75 to 79 75 to 79
70 to 74 70 to 74
65 to 69 65 to 69
60 to 64 60 to 64
55 to 59 55 to 59
50 to 54 50 to 54
45 to 49 45 to 49
40 to 44 40 to 44
35 to 39 35 to 39
30 to 34 30 to 34
25 to 29 25 to 29
20 to 24 20 to 24
15 to 19 15 to 19
10 to 14 10 to 14
5 to 9 5 to 9
0 to 4 0 to 4
120 80 40 0 40 80 120 120 80 40 0 40 80 120
Men [in millions] Women Men [in millions] Women
Total populaon: 2.396 billion Total populaon: 2.024 billion

Under 15 No educaon Primary Secondary Post-secondary

 The Development of Higher Education in Africa 17

The pyramids also differ in terms of the size of the population. Since the
level of education, particularly that of women, influences the number of
children born, we can see that the population of Africa varies under the
three scenarios: from 2.02 billion in the Fast Track scenario to 2.4 billion
in the Constant Enrollment Rate scenario. In the Trend scenario, the
population would be about 2.2 billion in 2060. The large differences in the
outcomes of the scenarios show highlight the strong effect educational
gains might have on the population size and structure of Africa, and what
would happen if there were no increase in education at all.
Regardless of the scenario, the population increase is major because of
population momentum, meaning the absolute size of the cohorts that are—
or in the near future will be—bearing children. This is relevant for many
African countries because it has implications in terms of the investments
in higher education. According to the Trend scenario, the population aged
25–29 with post-secondary education would increase 5-fold during the
next 50 years, meaning if this were to be achieved, critical investments in
the whole education sector would be necessary. As can be seen from
Figure 1.7, the increase will be tremendous for some countries such as
Ethiopia (5-fold), Mali (12-fold), Mozambique (13-fold) and Nigeria (8-
fold).
18 Chapter One

Figure 1.7: Population (in thousand) aged 25–29 with post-secondary education,
four African countries, 2010–2060, Trend scenario

Ethiopia Mali

1.800 120

1.600
100
1.400

1.200 80
in thousands

in thousands
1.000
60
800

600 40

400
20
200

0 0
2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050

Mozambique Nigeria

140 12.000

120
10.000

100
8.000
in thousdands
in thousands

80
6.000
60

4.000
40

2.000
20

0 0
2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050

Source: WIC (2015)

 The Development of Higher Education in Africa 19

Conclusion and Discussion

Bloom, Canning and Chan (2006) argued convincingly that increasing the
tertiary-educated population in Sub-Saharan Africa would be likely to
foster economic growth and facilitate technological catch-up and enhanced
productivity. Therefore, development strategies should not only focus on
increasing enrollment in primary and secondary education but along the
whole continuum of human capital development (see also Ajakaiye and
Kimenyi 2011). This chapter shows that Africa will have to overcome a
number of barriers to achieve this goal. The first obstacles are at the lower
education levels. If higher education in terms of population enrolled and
human capital stock is still a small bubble in most African countries, the
main reason is that educational attainment is low at all levels of the
education ladder. Education has a strong momentum and since schooling
occurs mostly at young ages, the poorly trained cohorts of the past
influence the labor force education structure—and naturally that of the
elderly population—for all years after they leave school. As clearly
highlighted by Teal (2010, 19), “[a]s post-secondary education is only
available to those with lower levels, investing in primary and secondary is
a pre-condition to being able to expand education at the tertiary level.”
However, the analysis reveals that the proportion of the population
with higher education has been increasing quite rapidly in recent decades
by years and cohorts; especially if we consider that in most African
countries, the proportion of the population with post-secondary education
was below 1% in the 1970s, and sometimes up to the mid-1980s (e.g.
Guinea Bissau and Mali). In a majority of Sub-Saharan African countries,
the most rapid increase at the level of primary and lower secondary
occurred in the period 1970–2010 but a substantial number of countries
managed to push forward the upper-secondary and higher education, the
former noticeably more than the latter. Those countries are particularly
located in southern Africa (e.g. Zambia and Zimbabwe), in western Africa,
(e.g. in D.R. Congo or Equatorial Guinea), and noticeably also in Nigeria.
Still, in most countries the proportion of the population with higher
education is still very low and only in a few cases exceeds 10% of the
working-age population (20–64 years old). This is true for most countries
in northern Africa (Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia), but Nigeria and
Swaziland are the only two Sub-Saharan African countries that have
achieved this level, together with Reunion—an overseas department of
France. We have also seen that the gender gap is closing but still exists in
many countries. In others, we see the spread of a phenomenon of
20 Chapter One

disaffection for higher education among men that has also been observed
in many developed countries.
The next obstacle has to do with future population growth which will
affect the ability of countries to absorb people in higher education. Many
development experts and demographers doubt the ability of most African
countries—especially those along the Sahel belt which have barely
initiated their demographic transition—to seize the demographic dividend
that would arise from having large segments of the population in the
working-age population (e.g. Eastwood and Lipton (2012) and Guengant
and May (2013)). Others are more optimistic (Bloom et al. 2007). The
opening of a window of opportunity requires three important preconditions
(among others) that are missing in those countries. First, rapid fertility
decline, which allows for fast decline in the dependency ratios favoring
productivity. Second, an educated population, whose skills will contribute
to economic development. Regarding the latter, we have shown that the
development of education will require substantially increased funds since
the schooling-age population is bound to increase, and this applies to all
levels of education. Furthermore, if higher education generates the
opportunity, governments and different actors in society must be able to
grasp the potential. The third prerequisite is good governance, which
played an important role in the economic miracle that occurred among the
so-called Asian Tigers (Mason 2001) and it is still missing in many
African countries. Financing the development of higher education and
developing the mechanisms that will allow the integration of the more
highly educated into the labor force will be among the main challenges for
African societies in the future (Teferra 2013).
The data used in this chapter do not allow for two sorts of analysis
which are at the heart of the development of the higher education sector.
The first is quality of education. Since the statistics are based on education
levels attained and years of schooling, they do not contain any information
on the quality of education and we can only speculate about that as we
briefly did in the case of Nigeria. This comment is also valid for the
comparison across countries, where the fact that the same proportion of the
population has achieved a certain level of education does not mean
progress is equivalent in terms of the quality of the curriculum followed in
both countries. The other caveat is, as mentioned above, the lack of
information on the proportion of the group with post-secondary education
which continued to graduate and postgraduate studies, the latter being the
focus of this book. Therefore the data analyzed in this chapter tend to
overestimate the population with completed higher education.
 The Development of Higher Education in Africa 21

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Lutz, Wolfgang, Anne Goujon, Samir K.C., and Warren C. Sanderson.
2007. “Reconstruction of Populations by Age, Sex and Level of
Educational Attainment for 120 Countries for 1970-2000.” Vienna
Yearbook of Population Research 2007:193–235.
Mason, Andrew (ed.). 2001. Population Change and Economic
Development in Asia: Challenges Met, Opportunities Seized. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.
Potanþoková, Michaela, Samir K. C., and Anne Goujon. 2014. “Global
Estimates of Mean Years of Schooling: A New Methodology.” IIASA
Interim Report IR–14–005. Laxenburg, Austria: International Institute
for Applied Systems Analysis.
Speringer, Markus, Anne Goujon, Samir K. C., Jakob Eder, Michaela
Potanþoková, and Ramon Bauer. 2015. “Validation of the Wittgenstein
Centre Back-projections for Populations by Age, Sex, and Six Levels
of Education from 2010 to 1970.” IIASA Interim Report IR–15–008.
Laxenburg, Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis.
Teal, Francis. 2010. “Higher Education and Economic Development in
Africa: A Review of Channels and Interactions.” Centre for the Study
of African Economies Working Paper Series CSAE WPS/2010–25.
Oxford: Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of
Oxford.
Teferra, Damtew. 2013. Funding Higher Education in Sub-Saharan
Africa. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
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 The Development of Higher Education in Africa 23

2015. Wittgenstein Centre Data Explorer Version 1.2. Available at:

http://www.wittgensteincentre.org/dataexplorer.
Wils, Annababette, and Anne Goujon. 1998. “Diffusion of Education in
Six World Regions, 1960-90.” Population and Development Review
24(2):357–368.
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No. 6920-UNI. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.
 CHAPTER TWO

HIGHER EDUCATION AND ACADEMIC

RESEARCH IN AFRICA:
THE SOCIAL-STRUCTURAL, CULTURAL
AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT

MAX HALLER1

Abstract
In this contribution, the recent development of higher education and
academic research in Africa (with particular reference to Sub-Saharan
Africa) is discussed, building on a review of the literature and one small
study by the author. The chapter starts with an outline of the recent
expansion and present state of higher education; while Africa still lags
behind all other continents in this regard, the expansion of education has
been considerable and will continue, given the extremely young
population. In the first section, some issues connected with this expansion
are discussed. In sections two to five, specific structural and institutional
problems for African higher education and academic research are
elaborated: The role of higher education for the reproduction of social
class structures; the potential conflict between Western and African values
in higher education; the ambivalent role of the domination of European
languages in higher education and academic research; and problems of the
internal administration and equipment of universities and their relations
with governments. The concluding section summarizes the findings and
draws some policy implications from them.

1
Prof. em., Department of Sociology, University of Graz, Austria; Member of the
Austrian Academy of Sciences.
 Higher Education and Academic Research in Africa 25

Introduction2
The relevance of higher education and scientific research for economic,
social and political development is beyond doubt. Without them, the
industrial and political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries would not
have happened, Japan and the state-socialist countries in Eastern Europe
would not have undergone their revolutionary catch-ups in the 20th
century. The recent spectacular economic growth in many South-East
Asian countries was also based on a massive upgrading of the educational
level of their populations, including a strong expansion of the tertiary
sector. Africa, and in particular Sub-Saharan Africa, is still lagging behind
all other major world regions both in terms of general and of higher
education, as shown in the preceding chapter by Anne Goujon and Jakob
Eder. While in most other countries and macro-regions of the global
South, about a third of the work-age population have attained some upper
secondary and post-secondary education, in Sub-Saharan Africa this
proportion is only between a sixth and a quarter. It is comparably high
only in North Africa and the Republic of South Africa and its small
neighbor countries (see Table 2.1 below, p.32).
This chapter has two aims. First, it will add some basic figures about
the development of higher education in Africa, supplementing the general
data about demographic development and educational development
presented in the previous chapter. Second, it will focus on a few social-
structural, cultural and institutional context factors which have been
influential and will contribute to future development. While covering
Africa as a whole, particular focus will be given to Sub-Saharan Africa,
the part of the continent which is the largest in terms of population and
which also poses particular challenges concerning higher education. We
explore five historical and structural issues which affect the connection
between educational upgrading and the expansion of higher education, and
educational upgrading and socio-economic development. These issues
include: (1) The relative youthfulness of higher education and research in
Africa; (2) the high level of socio-economic inequality in nearly all
African societies; (3) the potential conflict between traditional African and
modern Western values; (4) the extreme ethnic and linguistic diversity,
particularly of Sub-Saharan Africa; (5) the specific development of
politics and government, and the relations between governments and

2
Thanks for very useful comments to the draft manuscript are given to Anne
Goujon (VID, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna), Bernadette Müller Kmet,
University of Innsbruck) and Susan Mlangwa (University of St. Augustine,
Graduate Programme, Dar es salaam).
26 Chapter Two

institutions of higher education. In this chapter, a short overview on these

problems will be given, and some of them will be covered in more detail
in the following chapters.

Start from Scratch and Rapid Expansion of Higher

Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Potentials and Pitfalls
for Socio-Economic Development
In the last half millennium, up to the beginning of the 21st century,
development in terms of industrial take-off, economic growth and
improvements in standards of living was the weakest in Africa, and in
particular Sub-Saharan Africa, out of all world regions. Long-term
patterns of economic growth in the last five hundred years show it was
extremely strong in Europe, North American and Australia, somewhat less
strong in Asia (except East Asia) and Latin America, and weakest in Sub-
Saharan Africa and South Asia. 3 It is quite obvious that this lagging
behind of Africa and South Asia was closely connected to colonialism and
slavery. In many world regions, European colonizers destroyed local crafts
by importing their new industrial goods (Wendt 1978) and today unequal
trade relations still impede development of the global South (Boatca
2015). Colonialism was particularly harmful for SSA (Sub-Saharan
Africa) where it was associated with slavery. Europeans deported nearly
twelve million people from central Africa to the Americas and the Arabs
took even more people to North Africa and the Near East. In this way,
large parts of many west, central and east African countries were
depopulated (Reader 1998; Berlin 2003; Flaig 2009; N’Diaye 2008 Grant
2009). Colonialism and slavery contributed significantly to the economic
rise of the West and left a long-lasting and deep negative imprint on
African societies (Wallerstein 1974; Freund 1998; White and Killick 2001;
Haller 2015).
Even after political independence in the 1960s and 1970s, socio-
economic development remained uneven and problematic in most African
nations. For many reasons—pertaining mainly to internal conflicts and
wars, but also because of extremely high levels of population growth—
overall economic growth per capita remained weak. In fact, GDP per

3
See Max Roser, GDP Growth Over the last Centuries, published online
http://ourworldindata.org/data/growth-and-distribution-of-prosperity/gdp-growth-
over-the-last-centuries/ (30.1.2016).
 Higher Education and Academic Research in Africa 27

capita even decreased in many countries between 1961 and 2005.4 This
situation is particularly depressing given the dynamic development of
other world regions, which had levels of development that were
comparable to Africa after World War II, such as Latin America or India,
or the astonishing catching-up of South East Asian countries like Taiwan,
Korea and Thailand, and recently also of China. The success of the former
has been attributed by many scholars to their deliberate and successful
efforts to improve the education of their populations. An enormous
emphasis was placed on educational policies in South Korea, for
instance—a country which has experienced spectacular growth in recent
decades. Although after World War II the majority of the population were
still illiterate, today the rate of enrolment in secondary and higher
education is one of the highest in the world; over 90% attend secondary
schooling, and 65% of 25–34 old Koreans have had tertiary education.5
Korean pupils also score the highest globally in international achievement
tests like PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment).
The close connection between higher education and scientific research
on the one hand, and modernization on the other—technological progress,
economic growth, social and political improvement—is beyond doubt.
However, the connection between education and socio-economic progress
is true only in the long-term prospect and in a broad comparative view. If
we look at more restricted periods and specific countries, it is less evident.
Four caveats are in order here. First, some scholars have pointed out that
the expansion of higher education more often follows economic
development, rather than the other way around. (Abdi and Cleghorn 2005,
9; Arnove and Torres 1999) Today, societies can foster industrialization
and massively increase their output by taking over knowledge and
innovations from other countries (although one needs higher education
also to utilize innovative technologies). Second, a strong expansion of
higher education may create problems of its own, both from the viewpoint
of the students and from their career prospects. On the one hand, high
levels of competition in the school system may have unforeseen
consequences. The “all-work, no-play culture” of the South Korean school

4
Looking at the nine five-year intervals between 1961 and 2005, in six African
countries—Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Gabon, Liberia, Zambia—GDP p.c. declined in six or more periods. Data of the
World Bank, compiled in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28real%29_per_capita_
growth_rate.
5
See http://wenr.wes.org/2013/06/wenr-june-2013-an-overview-of-education-in-south-
korea/
28 Chapter Two

system6, for instance, causes high levels of stress and alarming numbers of
suicides among students who have working-learning days that often end
only at 11 p.m.7 On the other hand, ever since R. B. Freeman’s work The
Overeducated American (1976) an extensive literature has been produced
showing that in many countries the higher school system produces many
graduates who do not find adequate employment. A recent review of the
relevant literature concludes that the impacts of overeducation are not
trivial; it might be costly to individuals and firms, as well as to the
economy as a whole (McGuiness 2006; for a critical discussion of these
studies see Leuven and Oosterbeek 2011). In the Arab-speaking North
African countries, unemployment among the youth and especially among
graduates is already a huge problem. In Egypt, for instance, high-school
graduates account for 42% of the workforce, but for 80% of the
unemployed. It has been argued that this fact constituted a “time bomb”
that contributed significantly to the outbreak of the Arab Spring (Honwana
2013).8 In fact, the MENA region has the highest youth unemployment
globally (followed, ironically, by the EU); it is also alarming that
unemployment rates are higher among university graduates (between 30%
and 60%) than among those with lower levels of schooling.9
Third, it is mainly the development of primary education, complemented
with secondary education that boosts economic growth (Lutz, Crespo and
Sanderson 2008). Fourth, and in connection with this, recent studies using
the findings of international tests on educational achievement (such as
TIMSS-Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, and
PISA-Programme for International Students Assessments) have found that
it is not mere years of schooling that are relevant for economic growth but
the quality of education, measured by the knowledge that students gain in
each year of schooling. Comparing the cognitive skills learned in the

6
On a somewhat less pronounced level, such problems exist also in Finland which
is also praised as a front-runner in developing the education system.
7
See http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/04/15/393939759/the-all-work-
no-play-culture-of-south-korean-education (30.1.2016).
8
Wagdy Sawahel, Africa-Middle East: The jobless graduate time-bomb,
University World News, February 2, 2016; see
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=201102130832112.
9
Isobel Coleman, “Insight: Youth Unemployment in Middle East, North Africa”,
Middle East Voices, June 14, 2013 (see
http://middleeastvoices.voanews.com/2013/06/insight-youth-unemployment-in-
middle-east-north-africa-86923/). See also Youth Unemployment: Five Challenges
for North Africa, Paper for the regional Conference “Promoting Youth
Employment in North Africa”, Tunis, 16 July 2012 (available at
http://www.oecd.org/dev/emea/Background%20Paper.pdf).
 Higher Education and Academic Research in Africa 29

school system over 50 countries it turns out that this is much lower in
Africa and Latin America than in Europe and the English-speaking world
(Hanushek and Woeßmann 2010).
How does the situation regarding higher education in Africa look when
comparing between countries? Let’s have a short look at the recent history
of its higher education systems. (See also Fehnel 2003; Teferra and
Altbach 2003; Tiambe Zeleza and Olukosi 2004a, 21ff.) 10 . Before the
1960s, the period when most African nations gained their independence
from colonialism, only 18 of the 48 African countries had a university or
university college (Sawyer 2004, 1ff.). The colonial powers were not
interested in providing high education to their African subjects. Since the
1960s, the development of the higher education in Africa has passed
through three stages.
The 1960s and 1970s were the period of establishment of universities.
For example, the University of East Africa was established in 1963, and
later (in 1973) divided into the three universities of Makerere, Nairobi and
Dar es Salaam. The new African governments established and supported
these new institutions as “developmental universities” (Court and Coleman
1993; Sawyerr 2004, 5), setting the goals for them to provide skilled
manpower for the state and economy, qualified young academics for the
new universities and useful research for politics and society. The
universities were strongly supported by the new governments (Assié-
Lumumba 2006, 71).
However, in the 1980s and 1990s, the new universities underwent a
serious crisis due to their inability to fulfil the high expectations, as well as
due to changes in national governments, many of which became
authoritarian and initiated bloody internal and external conflicts (Haller
2015, 260–263). The economic crisis of the 1980s also struck SSA
particularly hard, burdening its countries with a heavy legacy of external
debts. Pressure from the influential development agencies, such as the IMF
and the World Bank, was exerted on governments to reduce their foreign
debts, which they did by reducing spending in health and education. The
consequences for higher education were severe. In the mid-1990s, one
observer wrote: “Higher education is in deep crisis in sub-Saharan Africa
[…] the majority of sub-Saharan African countries now face declining
public expenditure on higher education, deteriorating teaching conditions,
decaying educational facilities and infrastructures, perpetual student
unrest, erosion of university autonomy, a shortage of experienced and well

10
For a detailed outline of the influence of the Arab-Islamic world in pre-colonial
times, and of the colonial powers Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and
Italy on the development of higher education in Africa see Lulat 2003.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Aloitin tyvestä t.s. puhuin aluksi veneestä ja sen kehityksestä
ylimalkaan. Huomautin, että jos ei olisi olemassa vettä, ei tarvittaisi
venettäkään. Mutta nyt kun maapallollamme oli niin paljon vesistöjä,
oli ihmiskunnan ollut pakko ruveta veneitä veistämään.

Kuka ensimmäisen veneen rakensi, siitä eivät aikakirjat ole

jättäneet
meille tietoa. Kaiken todennäköisyyden mukaan se on ollut esi-
isämme
Aadam, koskapa Paratiisissa on ollut kolme jokea Piison, Giihon ja
Hiddekel. Mitenkäs mies olisi muuten näiden yli päässyt.

Siirryin sitten kuvaamaan veneen kehitystä, huomioonottaen

puheessa välttämättömän »paisutuksen». Pienestä, sikaruuhta
muistuttavasta purtilosta se oli kehittynyt nykyaikaiseen
superdreadnoughtiin saakka. Mutta ennenkuin se oli tämän
viimeksimainitun kehitysasteen saavuttanut, oli sillä ollut monta
välimuotoa.

Mainitsin näistä muutamia: kanootti, kaleeri, fregatti ja linjalaiva.

Kuvasin tarkkaan Kolumbuksen »Santa Marian», kunnes pääsin
nykyaikaiseen »Olympic'iin» ja »Titanic'iin», maailman tähän asti
tunnetusti suurimpaan laivaan.

Kuvasin vaikuttavasti viimeksimainitun surullisen kohtalon.

Kuulijani heltyivät niin, että kun olin päässyt tämän osan loppuun,
kuului juhlasalista voimakas itkun hyrske.

Pidin taidepaussin, jonka kestäessä varovasti kuivasin silmiäni,

sillä olin itsekin tullut liikutetuksi puheestani. Sitten vilkaisin kelloa ja
säikähdin: olin kuluttanut näihin alkuvalmistuksiin kokonaisen tunnin.
Koska kuulijakunta oli noin pehmeäksi muokattu, päätin takoa
raudan kuumana ollessa.

»Kansalaiset, perä-pohjolaiset!» jatkoin. »Meistä on ruvettu

sanomaan, että meillä kohta on peukalo keskellä kämmentä. Meistä
enää aniharva mies pystyy itse venettä rakentamaan. Nuo vanhan
polven suuret mestarit, »Vene-Aapot», »Juurikka-Tuomaat» ja
»Paju-Lassit» ovat kuolleet. He nukkuvat nurmen alla. Tuonen
lautturi on kuljettanut heidät veneessään siihen maahan, josta ei
enää palata. Missä ovat heidän seuraajansa?

»Yksi ja toinen yrittää, mutta taitoa puuttuu. Vain pahanpäiväisiä

raiskioita [Huomaan tässä kohden isosti liioitelleeni, mutta
puhetaidon salaisuuksiinhan kuuluu »huipistus» t. s. käyttää
tarkoituksellisesti liian voimakkaita värejä.] lojuu jokiemme rannoilla
venevalkamissa. Niillä ei uskaltaisi enää isommille vesille lähteä.
Vain joku harva tutiseva vanhus pystyisi vielä veneen tekemään,
mutta häneltä puuttuu voimia. Eivätkä nuoret välitä asiasta. On aika
ryhtyä työhön! Meidän on perustettava venemestarien pyhä
ammattikunta, joka valmistaa veneitä ei ainoastaan omaa
maakuntaa, vaan myös koko Suomea varten. Perä-Pohjolan
kaksilaitainen jokisukkula kunniaan! Tunnettakoon meidät
käsialoistamme kautta maan! Sanottakoon Satakunnassa,
kajautettakoon Karjalassa: 'Eläköön perä-pohjolainen kaksilaita!'

»Siis:

Kun maatalousseura lähettää ammattimiehen opettamaan jaloa

veneentekotaitoa, niin joka mies kouluun! Silloin kajahtakoon laulu:

'Nyt, miehet, kirves kouraan ja venepuita kaatamaan! Ja

koko Perä-Pohja kakslaitaisia laittamaan! Niin viemme taidon
 maineen yl' laajan Suomenmaan ja lailla suuren laineen
kohoomme kunniaan!'»

Olin vasiten sepittänyt tämän runonpätkän puheeni loppuun, sillä

tiesin omasta kokemuksestani, että runollinen innostus menee
päähän kuin häkä. Ja niinpä kävikin.

Kajahtivat mitä valtavimmat suosionosoitukset. Taputettiin käsiä ja

poljettiin permantoa. Kävi samanlainen jymy kuin jäänlähdön aikana
Isossa Väylässä. Mutta — oli sulanutkin rintojen routa.

Astuin alas kateederista ja esitin, että laulettaisiin »Väinölän

lapset».

Opettaja aloitti laulun ja kohta vyöryi sävel ukkosen voimalla

salissa, niin että seinähirret vapisivat. Niin valtavaa laulua ei liene
tuossa koulusalissa konsana kuultu, sillä vesi siinä kihahti
silmänurkkaan ihan väkisellä.

Ensimmäinen rynnäkkö oli tehty. Oli vain jatkettava samaan

suuntaan. Minä kiertelin kylästä kylään ja joka paikassa syttyi suuri
innostus. Puhuin veneiden teosta, rekien ja puuastioiden
valmistuksesta enkä unohtanut kirvesvarttakaan, joka näihin saakka
oli ostettu kauppiaan puodista.

Nyt vannoivat isännät ja talojen pojat: Ei ole kauppias enää

hyötyvä kirvesvarsien kaupalla, vaan ne tehdään tästä lähtien itse
niinkuin ennen, vanhan polven aikaan.

Esitelmämatkani kesti kolme kuukautta, mutta se aika oli kulkua

voitosta voittoon. Matkani lopussa saatoin ilmoittaa
maatalousseuralle: »Tulin, näin, voitin! Ei muuta kuin lähettäkää
neuvojia vain, niin veneitä ja saavia syntyy kuin sieniä sateella. Sillä
maa on avoinna.»

Näillä matkoilla oli minulla muuten erinomainen tilaisuus lausua

runojani. Melkein joka esitelmään soveltui joku runonpätkä. Minä
valaisin siis esityksiäni milloin tukkilaislauluilla, milloin jollakin
lyhyemmällä ballaadilla, riippuen siitä minkälaisissa maailmoissa
kulloinkin vaelsin. Kansa kutsui minua ensi alussa konsulentiksi,
mutta vähitellen rupesi se nimittämään minua runoilijaksi. Ja tämä
nimitys on paras palkinto, mitä olen tuosta työstä saanut. Minun
kansani, minun rakas Perä-Pohjolan kansani oli antanut minulle
runoilijan nimen. Se oli paljon, se oli enemmän kuin olin osannut
odottaa. Mutta minä olinkin runoillut kotiteollisuusaatteen heidän
sydämiinsä. Olin ratsastanut Pegasuksellani heidän pirttiensä läpi ja
jättänyt jälkeeni ihailun ja yleisen kunnioituksen. Siinä selitys
kotiteollisuuden nopeaan elpymiseen Perä-Pohjolassa.

Vielä tänäkin päivänä kuuluu Rajalan talossa Ylirannan kylässä

löytyvän kolmen kannun vetoinen viilipytty, josta ystäväni kirkkoherra
Teofilus Tiennäyttäjä on kerran syönyt. Ystäväni ihmetellessä pytyn
valtavaa kokoa oli talon isäntä huomauttanut: »Se on niitä
runoilijatalven tuotteita… siltä ajalta, jolloin se Aatami Kuuskoski
täällä luennoi. Siitä on syönyt kerran maaherra ja kerran piispa ja nyt
syö kirkkoherra, kun kuultiin, että tulisitte täällä käymään.»

Kuten tästä näkyy, elää runoilijamaineeni Perä-Pohjolan laajoilla

mailla. Olen jo eläessäni saanut muistomerkin itselleni —
useampiakin. (En tarkoita sitä pronssista rintakuvaa, jonka
kuvanveistäjä Kottu on minusta valmistanut.) Sillä enpä usko isosti
erehtyväni, jos oletan, että noita pyttyjä ja saaveja on useampiakin,
joiden syntysanat Muusa on minun kauttani lausunut. Ja olenpa
melkein varma, että Perä-Pohjolan jokia puikkelehtii moni vene, joka
vielä humisisi metsän puina ilman minun kiertomatkaani, mutta nyt
hursaltaessaan kiveliön kuohuja alas kuuluttaa minun kunniaani.
XII.

HAEN NIMISMIEHENVIRKAA JA PÄÄSEN KUIVALAAN. TULEN YSTÄVÄKSI

RUNOILIJOITTEN JA TAITEILIJOITTEN KANSSA.

Konsulentin toimi ei siis tullut pitkäaikaiseksi. Sillä kolmen

kuukauden ajalla, joka siihen oli kulunut, oli ollut merkitystä sekä
maatalousseuralle että minulle: olin lyönyt runoilijana itseni läpi
korkeamman forumin edessä kuin sen, minkä kustantajain
ahdaspäinen joukko muodosti. Itse kansa oli antanut minusta
arvostelunsa. Ja eiköhän vain tässäkin tapauksessa pitänyt
paikkaansa vanha totuus, että »kansan ääni on Jumalan ääni»?

Mutta runoilijatoiminnallakaan ei elä, jos se ei tuota leipää. Sen

olin kokenut. Ajelehdin jälleen virattomana ja kyynelten vaot rakkaan
Santrani kasvoilla osoittivat, ettei hän tuntenut itseään onnelliseksi
runoilijan puolisona. Ei siis auttanut muu, kuin ruveta katselemaan
uutta »viheriää oksaa», jonka varassa saattaisi tirskuttaa.

Sanomalehdistä huomasin, että Etelä-Suomessa, lähellä

pääkaupunkia, oli nimismiehenvirka avoinna.

En ymmärrä, kuinka tuo uutinen erikoisesti pisti silmääni, mutta

minä jäin asiaa miettimään. Eihän minulla ollut koulutodistuksia,
mutta sittenkin arvelin, että minun sopisi yrittää. Olinhan palvellut
järjestysmiehenä kymmenen vuotta ja minulla oli siitä virasta hyvät
todistukset. Vaikka »Kannon» puulaaki olikin minut erottanut, ei
inspehtori ollut viitsinyt »papereitani pilata», niinkuin hän sanoi.
Rakensin myös toiveeni sille pohjalle, että puheenaolevan läänin
maaherra oli mieskohtainen tuttavani. Hän oli aikaisemmin toiminut
lauttauspäällikkönä Ison Väylän varsilla ja minä olin joutunut monta
iltaa viettämään hänen kanssaan tukkikämpillä. Näihin seikkoihin
luottaen panin paperini postiin.

En ollut maininnut Santralle mitään koko puuhasta. En halunnut

turhan vuoksi tehdä häntä levottomaksi.

Kun hakijat oli lehdissä mainittu, piiloitin Santralta sen kappaleen

»Ristiniemen Sanomia», jossa uutinen oli. Mutta saihan hän sen
tietää kylällä.

»Mitä sinä nyt taas olet ruvennut hulluttelemaan? Vai

nimismieheksi!
Miksi et jo yhdellä tiellä hakenut maaherraksi?» raivosi hän.

Minulle muistui kansakouluvihosta mieleen lause: »Xantippa,

Sookrateen vaimo». En kuitenkaan puhunut siitä, vaan lausuin
tyyneesti:

»Ei ole auki sellaisia virkoja nykyjään.»

Siitä hän kiukustui yhä enemmän ja tällöin taisi tapahtua toisen

kerran avioliittomme aikana, että minun oli mentävä sängyn alle.

Muutamana päivänä juoksuttaa sitten lennätinkonttorin poika

minulle sähkösanoman. Onneksi ei Santra sattunut sillä kerralla
olemaan kotona.

»Osaatteko ruotsia?» seisoi paperissa kaikessa

lyhykäisyydessään.

Jaa-ah — siinä oltiin. Kaksikielisyyden kirottu kummitus ratsasti

selässäni ja tiukkasi, osasinko »venskaa».

Kirosin hengessäni. Miksi piti tässä maassa vallita niin kurjat olot,
että virkoihin pääsemiseksi vaadittiin vieraan kielen taitoa? Eikö
rakkaassa Suomessa tultu maan omalla kielellä toimeen, kun
virkamiesten piti osata »venskat» ja »vassokuut», ennenkuin leipä
lähti? Hyvää päivää, Aatami Kuuskoski, osaatko kiinaa?

Minua suututti. Vörpannate venska Folkbardiet. Voor te loov at

vara?

Mutta sitten minua rupesi asia huvittamaan. Ehkä tämä ei niin

mutkallinen juttu ollutkaan, kunhan tarkemmin mietti. Annapas olla.
Olihan sitä toisinaan venskaakin viskelty, kun oli sattunut pari
runoilijaryyppyä päähän. Mahtoiko tuo niin vaikea taito olla?

Rupesin miettimään. Leipä oli ruotsiksi »pröö» ja sitähän minun ei

tarvinnut ruotsiksi pyytää, jos se kerran viran mukana seurasi. Hyvää
päivää oli »kutaa» ja hyvästi »atjöö». »Kan tu laanu finska?» sisälsi
taas taas selvän ja suoran kysymyksen asiamiehelle, joka esiintyi
ruotsiksi. Kohteliaana henkilönä hänen oli pakko kääntää keskustelu
suomeksi, ja sillä oli asia autettu.

Ja — muuten, eikö nimismiehen virassa ollut sittenkin pääasia,

että pystyi ottamaan miestä kauluksesta, jos niin tarvittiin?

Totta kai.
 Marssin lennätinkonttoriin ja lähetin seuraavan sähkösanoman:

»Maaherra

Helsinki.

Jos luistakaan ei yhtä loistavasti ah kieli Svean, kuin tää

suomi luistaa. Ma ruotsalaista kauluksesta puistaa osannen
silti yhtä uljahasti.

Aatami Kuuskoski.»

Palasin kotiin tyytyväisenä. Olin jo hengessä näkevinäni maaherra

Tojkanderin hymyilevän naaman, kun hän näyttää sähkösanomaani
lääninsihteerille. »Tuota ei taidakaan joka poika! Runomitassa
vastaa, jukoliste! Sellaisia nimismiehiä ei joka oksalla kasva.»

Enkä minä erehtynytkään. Viikon perästä luin lehdistä, että

»nimismiehenvirkaan Kuivalan kauppalaan on viidestätoista
hakijasta nimitetty ent. järjestysmies Aatami Kuuskoski
Ristiniemeltä.»

Vein lehden Santralleni ja sanoin:

»Luehan tuosta.»

»Mitäs merkillistä siinä nyt sitten on?»

»Lue!»

Santra asetti lasit nenälleen ja luki. Pitkään aikaan hän ei puhunut

mitään. Sitten puhkesi »myrsky».

»Kuka ilkimys on tuollaista lehtiin pannut?»

 Rauhoitin häntä. Ei se ollut ilkityötä; se oli totisinta totta. Minut oli
nimitetty nimismieheksi. Hei, Santra, oliko sinulla sopivia leningeitä,
kun mentiin maaherran luo ensi visiitille?

Santra ei tahtonut ottaa uskoakseen. Nimismieheksi? Sehän oli

ihmeiden ihme.

Niin — ja siitä sain kiittää Pegasustani, sillä sehän ratsasti vaikka

itse presidentin linnaan. Tiesi vain, vaikka vielä ministerinä pohottaisi
Aatami Kuuskoski. Olihan Odo Hillbingerin koulutoveri Eero Yrjö
Putikkakin päässyt ministeriksi ja kirkkoherran kertoman mukaan
hän oli kouluaikanaan ollut täydellinen Nummisuutarin Esko. Miksi
en sitten minä, joka olin tunnetusti etevä ja lahjakas mies. Eero Yrjö
Putikka ei tietääkseni ollut esim. kirjoittanut yhtään ainoata runoa.
Mitähän kustantajat silloin sanoisivat?

»Jassoo… se on herra kulkulaitosministeri? Ja yhäkö herra

ministeri on yhtä uskollinen muusain palvelija…? Tota noin…
»Runoryijy»… se on erittäin kaunis nimi… harvinainen… hieno…
esteettinen. Kyllähän… me, tota noin… mielellämme, jos vain herra
ministeri suvaitsee kirjoittaa…»

Muistan erinomaisesti tuon ilonpäivän jälkeisen aamun. Tuntui niin

omituiselta… aivan kuin en olisi ollut oma itseni. Edellisestä illasta oli
kulunut niin mahdottoman pitkä aika ja unissani minä olin häärännyt
nimismiehenvirassa vallan vimmatusti ja syyttänyt ihmisiä
joukkokaupalla. Kun Santra toi minulle aamukahvini, lausuin
hymyssä suin:

»Tämä nimismies herää ensimmäistä kertaa.»

Santrakin hymyili.
 »Sinä et sitten koskaan muutu, vaikka sinusta tehtäisiin keisari.»

»En», ajattelin. Siinä oli Santra aivan oikeassa.

Asia herätti paikkakunnalla suurta huomiota. Se ei ollut vallan

jokapäiväinen tapahtuma. Naapurit kävivät onnittelemassa, mutta
minä vastasin naurussa suin:

»Alkua tämä vasta on, rakkaat ystävät.»

»Se aikoo vielä korkeammalle kiivetä!» kirkui Santra. »Hulluksi se

on tullut koko ukko!»

Mutta minä ajattelin Parnassoa, runoilijoitten taivasta. Se oli

päämääräni.

Meille tuli tavaton kiire myydä mökkimme ja laittautua

lähtökuntoon.

Lähtöpäivän aattoillaksi olivat tuttavat laittaneet meille pienet

kahvikekkerit. Kirkkoherra Hillbinger piti minulle puheen,
Raamatullista kieltä käyttäen hän vertasi minua Daavidiin, josta tuli
kuningas. Hän kehoitti minua muistamaan, että valta on
edesvastuullinen lahja, jota on taiten käytettävä.

Eikä Odo-papin — sikäli kuin hän on minun kohtaloltani seurannut

— ole kertaakaan tarvinnut punastua puolestani. Minä olen käyttänyt
valtaa, mutta hillinnyt ruumiilliset voimani tässä niinkuin puulaakin
aikuisessa järjestysmiehen virassakin. Sillä vielä nytkin
viisikymmentä täytettyäni nostan miehen seinää vasten koska ja
missä tahansa. Ja kun kerran olen vetäytyvä vanhuuden ansaittuun
lepoon, olen vakuutettu, ettei ruotsalaisilla paremmin kuin
suomalaisillakaan tule olemaan mitään mielikarvautta minua
kohtaan. Sen todistaa minulle parhaiten viisikymmenvuotispäivänäni
saamani lahja, hopeiset kirjoitusneuvot, joihin molemmilla
kotimaisilla kielillä on kaiverrettu: »Nimismies Aadam Kuuskoskelle
humaanisesta käyttäytymisestä. Kuivalan kauppalan asujamisto.»

Me siis muutimme. Matkasta en rupea kertomaan. Sen vain

tunsin, että runouteni kultaiset maat, joilla olin puolivälin
viidettäkymmentä vuotta vaellellut, jäivät nyt. Ja kyynel
silmänurkassa minä toisen luokan vaunun portailta katselin, kuinka
Ristiniemen vaarat häipyivät näköpiirin taa.

Joulukuun ensi päivänä otin viran vastaan. Syyskäräjät olivat tänä

vuonna lykkääntyneet tavallista myöhempään. Ne sattuivat heti
kuukauden alkuun.

Ruskea, vastaostettu salkku kainalossa ja nimismiehen uuden

uutukainen virkapuku päällä minä marssin käräjätalolle. Saavuttuani
avaraan eteiseen, joka oli täynnä kansaa, loin majesteetillisen
katseen yleisöön ja huomasin, kuinka kaikkien päät paljastuivat.

»Hyvää päivää!» lausuin arvokkaasti. »Minä olen uusi nimismies

ja vaikka kohtaammekin täällä, toivon, että voimme veljinä kohdata
toisemme.»

Katseeni ylhäisyys ja ääneni lempeä kaiku tuntui tekevän hyvän

vaikutuksen, koska väkijoukosta kuului hyväksyvää hyminää. Eräs
nuori mies vain virnisteli, mutta minä musersin hänet katseellani
siihen paikkaan. Arvelin hänen kuuluvan siihen joukkoon, jolla
syytettyjen penkille joutuneena oli hiukan vaikea uskoa »veljeyteen».
Enkä erehtynytkään, sillä ensimmäinen, jonka »ruuattoman pöydän»
ääressä kohtasin, oli äskeinen virnistelijä.
 Käräjät onnistuivat erinomaisesti. Minä, jolla tällä alalla oli jo
entuudestaan mitä monipuolisin kokemus Ristiniemen ajoilta, hoidin
tehtäväni loistavasti. Syytin ponnella ja peräänantamattomuudella,
mutta — milloin vain ilmeni hiukankin lieventäviä asianhaaroja, —
olin ensimmäinen alleviivaamaan niitä. Ja niitähän ilmeni joka
jutussa. Saavutin heti ensi esiintymiselläni sekä istuvan tuomarin
että lautakunnan yksimielisen tunnustuksen.

En mahtanut mitään sille, että parikymmentä henkilöä pääsi

viettämään joulua lukkojen taakse. Mutta — jos he vain olivat
puoleksikaan panneet merkille, millä inhimillisyydellä minä olin
syyttäjänä esiintynyt, he varmaan söivät joulupuuronsa yhtä
tyytyväisinä kuin minäkin.

Minulla olisi paljon kertomista tältä ensimmäiseltä vuodelta

nimismiehenä ja toimeenpanevan vallan edustajana. Mutta kun
mieleni ja harrastukseni ovat aina pyrkineet suuntautumaan
runouden purppuraista taivasta kohti, sivuutan virka-asiat ja kerron
vain sellaista, mikä tavalla tai toisella on yhteydessä näiden
harrastusten kanssa.

Jo ensimmäisenä vuonna tutustuin melkein kaikkiin Kuivalassa

asuviin taiteilijoihin. Niitä oli suuri joukko. He olivat hyljänneet
pääkaupungin humun ja vetäytyneet maalle taidetta palvelemaan.
Vanhoja veteraaneja kuluneissa puvuissa, sellaisia kuin esim.
Runoilija Jouko Touko ja Rietin-Kaapo. He olivat näppäilleet
lyyraansa Suomenmaassa jo kolmisenkymmentä vuotta, mutta en
huomannut heitä missään suhteessa itseäni, etevämmiksi. Kaipa
juuri tästä syystä he heti ensi tutustumiselta liittyivät seuraani, sillä
runoilijoilla on herkät vaistot: he haistavat Horatiuksen jo pitkän
matkan päästä. Ja vaikka minusta kohtalon pakosta ei ole tullut
Horatiusta paremmin kuin Virgiliustakaan, olen heidän seurassaan
istuessani tuntenut edustavani näitä klassillisia ukkeleita. Sillä — kun
olen toisinaan lukenut heille esim. »Henkivakuutusasiamiehen» tai
»Sankarisielun» — ovat he käyneet sanattomiksi hämmästyksestä.
Mutta minä, jonka pääkoppa on monessa liemessä keitetty, olen
ystävällisesti taputellut heitä olkapäälle ja sanonut: »Ei yhtään hätää,
veljet! Runoilkaa te vain rauhassa! Se kun minä vain näin illan
kuluksi näytän, minkälaista tauhkaa minun pöytälaatikkoni sisältää.»
Johon Touko on useamman kuin yhden kerran huomauttanut:
»Mutta, saakuri! Siellähän on ruokaa Suomen kansalle ja sinä
säilytät sitä pöytälaatikossasi naulojen ja patruunanhylsyjen parissa.
Se on huono skafferi niin delikaattisapuskoille, piru vieköön!»

Reitin-Kaapo on ainoa, joka tavallisesti on ruvennut panemaan

vastalauseita, kun käteni ratkaisevana hetkenä on sukeltanut
pöytälaatikkoon. »Pois käsi sieltä!» hän on huuaissut minulle kuin
vanha tantti lapselle, joka pyrkii sokuripaloja varastamaan. »Minä en
halua yhtään runoa. Tämä kuminaviina on paljon parempaa.
Nauttikaamme siitä!»

Mutta minä en tavallisesti ole antanut perään, vaan olen

itsepintaisen lapsen lailla varastanut sokuripalasen. Silloin on Rietin-
Kaapo päätänsä heilutellen kuin pökkäämään valmistautuva pässi
ruvennut hokemaan: »Liirum laarum, tiirum taarum», johon Jouko
Toukokin toverinsa esimerkin rohkaisemana on yhtynyt: »Litsis lätsis,
ritsis rätsis». Mutta minä en ole välittänyt heidän liirumlaarumeistaan
enkä litsislätsis-läpsytyksistään, vaan olen lausunut mahtavan
»Perä-Pohjolani» yhä kasvavalla paatoksella, kunnes — päästessäni
viimeisen värssyn viime säkeisiin: »Tämä maa minun mieltäni
miellyttää, tämä Suomen manteren miehuuspää!» — olen
huomannut runoilijaveljien »miehuuspäiden» pamahtaneen rintaa
vasten ja syvän kuorsauksen tärisyttävän pientä huonettani. Niin
valtavan vaikutuksen on »Perä-Pohjola» tehnyt. Se on nukuttanut
nämä Suomen leijonat, joilla muuten on sangen terävät kynnet
tassuissaan, jos sille päälle sattuvat. Sellaisina hetkinä olen hiljaa
kohonnut pystyyn, hiipinyt Jouko Touon tuolin taa ja, laskien käteni
hänen päälaelleen, lausunut murheellisella äänellä:

»Oi Suomen runous kuink' oot sa raukea! Oi taiteen tantere

kuink' oot sa aukea: vain siellä täällä torkkuu pari päätä ja
kansan sydän täynnä routaa, jäätä. Oi, Herra, herätä!»

Silloin on Jouko Touko äkkiä nostanut pörröisen päänsä pystyyn ja

päästänyt pitkän »kukko kiekuu»-huudon, johon Rietin-Kaapo on
tavallisesti yhtynyt kot-kot-kot-kaakatuksellaan. Se on ollut heidän
mielestään vitsiä, mutta minusta on näissä veljieni »lauluissa» joka
kerta kajahtanut ilmoille Suomen kuolevan runouden viimeinen
hätähuuto ja minä olen painanut kädet kasvoilleni ja itkenyt.

Niin — voinpa siis kerskata tuntevani Suomen suurimmat runoilijat

ja kirjailijat, maalareista ja kuvanveistäjistä puhumattakaan. Yksi
viimeksimainituista, Paavo Kottu, on hakannut pääni marmoriin. Se
kaunistaa kirjahyllyni päällystää. Mutta minun ei pitänyt kertoa siitä.
Minun piti puhua taiteilijaveljistäni. Kirjailijoista olen eniten
seurustellut novellisti Kalle Nousun kanssa, joka on sangen hiljainen
herra. Istuu puolipäivää puhumatta sanaakaan, mutta on sitä
kiitollisempi kuulija, koska hänellä ei Jouko Touon ja Rietin-Kaapon
lailla ole taipumusta vastalauseisiin. Taikka — hän on vastalausetta
koko mies — omaa kirjallista suuntaansa vastaan. Sillä on melkein
mahdotonta uskoa, että tämä ujo mies on voinut kirjoittaa sellaisen
väkevän kirjan kuin »Kuu, kuhilas ja kirjava vasikka». Se on
suomalainen Dekameron ja minä olen lukenut sen ainakin
kahteenkymmeneen kertaan, vieläpä lainannut sen kirkkoherra
Teofilus Tiennäyttäjällekin, vaikka en yleensä harrastakaan kirjojen
lainaamista.

Kirjailija Kalle Nousun kanssa olemme mitä parhaita ystäviä. Hän

on m.m. lukenut »Runoryijyni» ja antanut siitä hyvän arvostelun. Hän
on sanonut: »Jos minulla olisi ollut kaikki nuo aiheet, olisin aikoja
elänyt koroillani.» Minä uskon sen. Mutta nyt kun ne on minulla, en
ole saanut edes teostani julkisuuteen. Sellaista on elämä.

Yleensä olen elänyt sovussa runoilijaveljieni kanssa. Ainoastaan

kirjailija Saarles Suokuovin kanssa ovat välit pyrkineet rikkoutumaan.
Mainittu herrasmies on tavattoman lahjakas, mutta niin oikullinen,
että toisinaan suuttuu puolesta sanastakin ja kirjoittaa kymmenen
arkin pituisia haukkumakirjeitä. Minä olen kuitenkin siksi jalomielinen,
etten tuosta loukkaannu. Pistän kirjeen arkistooni ajatellen, että
tulevatpahan kerran tarvituiksi, — jolleivät ennemmin, niin ainakin
tämän merkillisen kirjailijan kuoleman jälkeen, jolloin hänen
runoilijakuvansa Suomen kansalle esitetään.

Tätä kirjailijaa kohtaan tunnen kaikesta välillämme sattuneesta

kahnauksesta huolimatta mitä suurinta mielenkiintoa, sillä olen
huomannut hänet henkiseksi sukulaisekseni: häntä samoinkuin
minuakaan ei oma aika ole ymmärtänyt, vaan molemmat olemme
saaneet mitä suurimmassa määrin väärinkäsitystä ja kateutta
osaksemme.

Mutta — mitäpäs siitä. Luulen, että ystäväni Saarles Suokuovi

yhtyy seuraaviin säkeisiin, jotka löytyvät runossani »Runoilijan
palkka»:
 Kun alkuaineet avaruuden kuumuuttansa hohtaa ja
raukeaapi mailma tulikaaokseen, kun leimauksessa salaman,
— haa! — länsi idän kohtaa ja taivas kiertyy kuni kirja
rullalleen, kas silloin saavat runoilijat väärin ymmärretyt. ah,
lopullisen runoilijaeläkkeen: he ylimmäisnä istuvat, nuo silloin
lepytetyt, käy enkellaumat etehensä polvilleen.»
XIII.

MINÄ RUPEAN FILMINÄYTTELIJÄKSI JA LASKEN HÄRJÄNKURKUN

YHDELLÄ TUKILLA.

»Se ihme, joka viimeks tuli ilmi ja keksinnöiden pitkän mitan

täytti, mi vanhan suunnan näyttelijöille näytti, ah, pitkän
nenän! — Se oli filmi.»

Näin alkaa runoni »Viimeinen ihme», jonka kirjoitin kohisevan

koskilla muutamana heinäkuun iltana koskenlaskunäytösten jälkeen.

Minusta oli tullut filminäyttelijä.

Filmiosakeyhtiö »Ihanne» oli päättänyt filmata Ville Korpelan

»Koskenlaskijan kosinnan». Koska koskenlaskukohtaukset
muodostavat teoksen nousupaikat, oli selvää, että
näyttelijäseurueen, jonka filmiyhtiö oli palkannut mainittua filmiä
näyttelemään, täytyi esittää myös koskenlaskut — luonnossa. Mutta
mistä saada mies, joka ryhtyisi yritystä johtamaan?

Yksikään seurueen jäsenistä ei pystynyt siihen — luonnollisesti.

Eiväthän nuo Helsingin herrat ja röökinät olleet oikeaa koskea edes
nähneetkään — saatikka sitten laskeneet.
 Minä olin tuttavapiirissäni kertonut Perä-Pohjolan koskenlaskuista.
Olin kuvannut heille yhdellä tukilla laskun Pahtakosken kohisevien
ha päiden välistä. Minä olin tuon tempun suorittanut kymmeniä
kertoja.

»Mutta laskeppas Härjänkurkusta, sitten vasta olet mies!» tikaisi

ystäväni Jouko Touko.

Tiedustelin, missäpäin Suomea sellainen koski oli. Sain kuulla sen

olevan yhden Kohisevan vuolaimpia koskia Kymenlaakson puolessa.

»Vaikka kadotuksen portista, jos niikseen tulee!» huudahdin minä

ja löin nyrkkiä pöytään.

»Hyvä… pannaanpas korvan taa», myhäili Jouko Touko

salaperäisenä ja vilkutti silmää.

Hänellä oli silloin jo asia tiedossaan, vaikkei tuo pahus minulle

mitään puhunut.

Parin päivän kuluttua sain kirjeen, jossa minua kehoitettiin

tulemaan kaupunkiin ja ilmoittautumaan »Ihanteen» johtajalle, herra
Martti Murulle.

Olin tämän herran jo aikaisemmin tavannut. Tiesin, että hän oli

entinen muurari, joka nyt oli kohonnut Suomen suurimman
filmiyhtiön johtajaksi.

Hän esitti minulle asian. Runoilija Jouko Touko oli hänelle kertonut.

Arvasinhan minä.
 Asiasta sovittiin ja kahden viikon kuluttua meidän piti tavata
Kohisevalla.

Siellä oli suuri joukko herroja ja naisia koolla. He kuuluivat

näyttelijöihin. Herra Muru esitteli minut heille:

»Tässä on herra Kuuskoski, joka aikoo laskea Härjänkurkun.»

»Kyllä… se on vakava tarkoitukseni, hyvä herrasväki», ilmoitin

minä, tehden maailmanmiehen kumarruksen.

Johtaja Muru oli jo teettänyt lautat valmiiksi. Niillä piti minun nyt
Helsingin herrojen kanssa hursalluttaa alas Kohisevan kuohuista.

Läksin tarkastelemaan lauttoja ja hämmästyin. Kaikkea pitää

nähdä, kunhan kyllin vanhaksi elää! Vai tällaisilla risukimpuilla aikoi
johtaja Muru lähettää meidät koskille!

Kieltäysin jyrkästi ja panin lähtöni ehdoksi, että saan itse rakentaa

lautat. Muuten en uhannut puuttua koko yritykseen.

»Mutta — ne on vanha ja kokenut koskenlaskija valmistanut»,

huomautti herra Muru. »Kyllä hän ymmärtää asian.»

Vastasin, ettei mainittu herra ymmärtänyt kerrassaan mitään,

olkoonpa sitten vaikka kymmenesti koskenlaskija ammatiltaan. Ei
muuta kuin uudet lautat, jos mieli minun olla yrityksessä mukana.

Monien tuumailujen jälkeen suostui johtaja viimein. Minä rupesin

kaatamaan puita yhtiön laskuun. Näytin herroille alusta pitäen, miten
lautta oli rakennettava, — näytin yksityiskohtia myöten. He levittelivät
käsiään ja ihmettelivät.