Elitist Versus Mass High Education: A Comparative Study

Dr John Apuruot AkecUniversity of Northern Bahr El Ghazal

Conference on Future of Higher Education in South Sudan, Heron Campsite Hotel, Juba

14-15 November 2011

Content

• Definition of Higher Education• Importance of Higher Education• Status Quo (Statistics)• Elitist vs Mass Higher Education• Justification for Mass Higher Education• Role of Private Higher Education• Funding of Higher Education• Conclusions

Definition of Higher Education

• Higher education is "any post secondary education or training, outside of those given to the organized forces "(Tingwa, 2010).

• In other countries, a distinction is made between tertiary education (university and non-university colleges) that offers everything (diplomas, to bachelors)

• And higher education (universities proper) that offer only advanced diplomas, bachelor degrees, masters, and PhDs on the other(Abeli, 2010).

Importance of Higher Education

• At a national level, …..produces human capital equipped with skills and attitudes necessary for socio-economic advancement of a country (Abeli, 2010; Tingwa, 2010).

• At individual level, ….trains future leaders that are critical thinkers,

• Technocrats…political leaders capable of addressing development challenges (Abeli, 2010)

• “gives the man and women the clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, eloquence in expressing them, and force in urging them." (Akec, 2009).

Importance of Higher Education

• For a developing and post conflict country like South Sudan, higher education is a means to achieving self-reliance in expertise and indigenization of development (Varghese, 2007).

Importance of Higher Education

• Global financial crisis in 1980s, many developing countries, notably heavily indebted African nations, were pressured by the international lending institutions (World Bank and IMF) to implement Structural Adjustment Programmes, which shifted more public funding to primary and secondary education while giving lower priority to higher education.

• The result was a decline in public higher education (Abeli, 2010, Varghese, 2007)

Importance of Higher Education

• The underfunding of higher education in many African countries is blamed for shrinking of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1990s to below 1980s levels

• Bad in comparison to far East and East Asian countries like South Korea, Malaysia and China that resisted structural adjustment ( Manbiot, 2004).

• Previous studies claimed no link between education and economic growth, recent studies have found education to be key (IIASA, 2008).

Status Quo – South SudanPrivate or Philanthropic Public Institution

16+ 9 Universities

No record No record Colleges

Status Quo-TanzaniaPrivate or Philanthropic Public Institution

14 4 Universities

7 3 Colleges

Status Quo-Total Enrolment South Sudan and Neighbours

Country

12,000 South Sudan

500,000 Sudan

100,000 Uganda

Status Quo- SudanPrivate or Philanthropic Public Institution

7 26 Universities

48 20 Colleges

Status Quo-Graduate Enrollment Ratios (GER)GER Country

12% Sudan

4.1% Tanzania

83% USA

58% Japan

32% Malaysia

23% China

23% Arab Countries Average

6% Sub-Sahara Africa Average

Elitist Higher Education

• Until 1989, Sudan ran an elitist system of higher education that was inherited from colonial administration.

• Very few places at university to very bright students. • Very competitive - over 100,000 students sat Sudan

School certificates and some 3,000 or less than 1% were offered places by Universities and training institutes (Khartoum, Gezira, Juba,).

• Students well taken care of and enjoyed free tuition and accommodation.

• Society treated them with reverence and respect.

Elitist Higher Education

• Was unable to cope with rise in number of students taking Sudan School Certificate

• Bottlenecked• Students seeking university places doubled in

the last decade from 210,000 in year 2000 to 430,000 in year 2011.

• Expansion in Sudan higher education was inevitable

Mass Higher Education• Justification

– Increasing social demand for higher education (as indicated by mushrooming of private higher education in South Sudan and number of SPLM combatants and veterans who want to get a degree).

– Provision of human resources to manage economy. A report in December 2009 by Management Systems International for USAID, says that it would take 30 years of robust international intervention to fill capacity deficit in human resource (Management Systems International, 2009). This time frame can be reduced through the adoption of mass higher education strategy.

– Treating education as investment by conducting cost/benefit analysis. Will tribal wars stop if anyone had a degree?

– Social justice. In other words, to expand in order to allow those unable to compete to highly competitive elitist universities get a degree by joining higher education. This is possible only when there is a large choice of higher education institutions.

Mass Higher Education• Given the technological advances that occurred in 20th century and the

ascendency of globalization in 21st century, for any nation to compete in the global marketplace, it needs to produce skilled and educated workforce at a faster rate than can be provided by an elitist system of higher education (Varghese, 2007).

• Goods that were produced in world in a year in 1889, can now be produce in 2 days (Varghese, 2007).

• This necessitates the mass higher education strategy. • the better the GER of a country the higher is its Global Knowledge Index

or GKI(Abeli, 2010).• As long as African countries continue to lag behind in GER, then they will

remain less competitive and will not benefit from outsourcing opportunities enjoyed by China, South Korea, Malaysia, Brazil, and India.

Private Higher Education• Private higher education is profit driven and selective in what they can

offer to reduce the cost and hence more likely to concentrate on courses that require less infrastructure (Varghese, 2006).

• Common courses offered: computing, business administration, accounting, economics, marketing, and so on.

• Staff development opportunities are limited and that can affect the quality of education offered.

• Emphasis on art and humanities at private higher education at the expense of technological subjects, the impact on economy is not significant (Varghese, 2006)).

• Most of them are foreign owned. Despite the large number of private higher education institutions in African countries, great bulk of enrollment still takes place at public higher education institutions (Tumwesigye, 2006). The case of Uganda is a good example.

Proposal for Funding of Higher Education

• Increasing budget allocation to Universities• Creation of Petroleum Education Fund and building infrastructure of

general and higher education• Encouraging international oil companies doing business in South Sudan to

contribute to educational infrastructure development as a condition for acquiring operation license

• Full or partial recovery cost of tuition by offering student loans from a student loan fund set up by the government.

• Universities determine how much it costs to train student in different fields of study and charge accordingly.

• Loans be availed to students taking up science-based and technological subjects.

• Establishment of university business enterprises to help meet operating and running costs

Maintaining Quality

- Raise salaries in higher education to attract the best nationally, regionally, and internationally.

- Raise standards in primary and secondary schools

- Avail opportunities for postgraduate studies in developed countries for teaching staff and support staff.

Conclusions

• Examined the merits and demerits of elitist versus mass higher education

• Expansion is inevitable and necessary to speed up the provision of needed human resource capital

• Elitist kind of education is ill-fit for South Sudan• We need to grapple with finding resources and

maintaining quality

References

Abeli, W.S. (2010). Higher Education and Development: A Critical Nexus, SARUS Workshop on Investment in Higher Education for Development: New Directions, University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, 5th August 2010. Akec, J.A. (2009). Why University Education Still Excites Many Sudanese, Sudan Tribune, 14th February 2009.

Management Systems International (2009), Government of South Sudan Functional Capacity Prioritization Study: Consultative Draft.

Manbiot, George (2004). The Age of Consent: A Manifesto of New World Order, London: Harper Perennial 2004.

El Tahir, Abdalhafiz (2010). Growing Social Demand and Expansion of Higher Education System in Sudan, Conference of Higher Education in Southern Sudan, Juba, 6-7 September 2010.

List of South Sudan Universities: Public and Private, Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Science and technology, Government of South Sudan, July 2010.

Tingwa, Peter (2010). Towards a National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy in Higher Education, Conference in Higher Education in Southern Sudan, Juba, 6-7 September 2011.

Tumwesigye, George (2006). Private Higher Education in Uganda, International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO, Paris.

Tefera, D.; Albatch, Philip eds. (2003). African Higher Education: An International Reference Handbook. Bloomington: Indiana Universities.

Varghese, N.V. (2007). Higher Education and Development, International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO, Paris.

Varghese, N.V. (2006). Growth and Expansion of Private Higher Education in Africa, International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO, Paris.

IIASA Policy Brief (2008) Economic growth in Developing Countries: Education Proves a Key, Policy Brief #03, International System for Applied System Analysis, Vienna Institute of Demography, August 2008. (http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PUB/policy-briefs/pb03-web.pdf). Retrieved on 15 February 2011.