AFRICA: Renew the university, Mbeki tells students

In a predictably cerebral speech containing strong echoes of his hallmark African Renaissance theme, former South African president Thabo Mbeki has argued for the central role of the university in development and highlighted the "self-definition of the African intelligentsia" as one of the most important tasks of student leaders. He was addressing the African Student Leaders' Summit held in Cape Town earlier this month.

Mbeki drew at length on eminent Africanist sources such as Ugandan scholar Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei Armah and Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o to nurture the ongoing debate about the value of African scholarship, African identity and perceptions of 'Africa' in the post-colonial academy.

Quoting extensive extracts from Ngugi and Armah, both of whom have offered critical analyses on the complicity of African intelligentsia in the colonial and neo-colonial projects, Mbeki challenged student leaders to break the spell of Eurocentrism. In the words of Armah, "know enough about our [African] cultural resources to find the resources African society needs to build its future, with no need to go cadging concepts from alien sources".

Following "automatically" from such self-definition, argued Mbeki, is a challenge to the 'ivory tower' concept of the university - "the positioning of student leaders and the students they lead among the ordinary African masses, as allies with these masses in the common struggle for the progressive transformation" of the continent.

Quoting from the 1955 South African Freedom Charter, he said the aim of education was to "teach the youth to love their people and the culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace".

Recalling the destruction of the African city of Carthage by European Rome in 146 BC, and the call in 1994 by his predecessor Nelson Mandela for the metaphorical rebuilding of Carthage by Africans, Mbeki exhorted his audience to use its capacity as young African intellectuals to rebuild the African university which would be the principal driver of the continent's "intellectual awakening".

Mbeki said it was student leaders' special responsibility to engage in the struggle for the renewal of the African university, which was the sole institution to "provide Africa with the critically important intellectual capital without which it cannot achieve its renaissance".

He appealed to students to focus on the renewal of higher education in their political activities. Although he had no quarrel with public and active expression of displeasure and demands by students of Africa, he said he drew the line at actions "which result in destruction of university property and physical abuse of the university administration and staff".

The former head of state laid the blame for the "parlous" state of higher education in Africa at the door of internationally-imposed structural adjustment programmes, which dictated reduced funding for higher education in the past, and on simultaneous hostility from ruling African elites, some of whom perceived universities as "centres of opposition to their predatory rule".

He said he believed the African student community was well placed to take up the challenge of rescuing the African university from its unacceptable position as, in the words of sociologist Leo Zeilig, "a neglected institution, a crumbling edifice housing impoverished students and lecturers".

Arguing for the supremacy of intellectual capital, Mbeki said Africa would overcome its numerous challenges not because of its wealth in natural resources but because of its intellectual ability to properly manage and use these resources for the benefit of Africans.

Mbeki advised summit participants to engage with the principles adopted by African governments at the 2009 World Conference on Higher Education which called, among other notable aims, for higher education: to be regarded as a pubic good, equally accessible to all on the basis of potential and demonstrated academic ability; to be transformed "sharply" to enhance its relevance and responsiveness to African realities; and to address the challenges relating to gender and racial equality, academic freedom, the brain drain, dropout levels and lack of graduate preparedness for the job market.

He also listed the need for greater attention to original research, the expansion of postgraduate studies and the inclusion of students in institutional governance systems.