More practical training – A growing call in HE

Current higher education policies which prioritise numbers of students over education quality and relevance are creating long-term labour market dysfunction and an oversupply of graduates with limited employment opportunities, according to an agricultural education expert.

Carl ES Larsen, former World Bank expert in agricultural education and now a freelance consultant in agricultural higher education, said the cheapest way for African governments to meet the demand for higher education is to increase uptake in social science and humanities disciplines. However, there were considerable disadvantages to this strategy.

Larsen was due to speak at the recent 13th general meeting of RUFORUM – the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture – held in Malawi from 25-27 October, where issues such as graduate employment, and practical and vocational education came under the spotlight, but was unable to attend due to unforeseen circumstances.

When interviewed by University World News by email, he said: “[Existing policies] optimise the need to meet public demand for access to higher education. But the gains are short-lived. This policy creates long-term labour market dysfunctionalities. It overproduces graduates with little employment opportunity.”

Larsen’s comments echoed the view of RUFORUM communication officer Joan Apio who said: “African governments face massive public pressure to provide young people with an education. Both the young and their parents want to have university degrees. University education is seen as the fastest and most reliable avenue for social mobility and a prosperous future."

Established in 2004, RUFORUM is a consortium of 83 African universities operating in 35 countries. It has a mandate under the African Union to support capacity building for science, research and technology development in Africa.

Larsen said a spinoff of the pressure to increase student numbers was a drop in university educational quality, with per student funding declining and student to lecturer ratios being pushed beyond the acceptable mark.

He said the public sector in Africa could not absorb the massive increases in university graduates being produced and the private labour market, which drives national economies, was in need of graduates with science-related education, including health and agriculture.

“Not only does the current policy focus on the wrong type of university education but also produces graduates of decreasing quality who won’t solve the challenges that communities face. This, in turn, creates an ever-increasing number of unemployed, underemployed or unemployable undergraduates,” he said.

Practical training

Larsen argued that the best way to equip graduates with relevant skills was to put greater emphasis on practical training. He said African universities needed to find a way to revitalise higher education by combining vocational or practical training with academic theory in their undergraduate education systems, because the current higher education system was becoming increasingly outdated and incompatible with labour market demands.

The issue of quality was also raised by Fortuné Azihou, a lecturer at Benin-based University of Abomey-Calavi, who called on African governments to give universities higher degrees of autonomy so they could begin to “change the educational paradigm" to allow for the passive civil servant mold – shaped by the colonial master – to be broken.

“The ‘passive civil servant’ mold installed by the colonial master must be changed or at least supplemented with an ‘active private sector entrepreneur’ mold that has practical abilities,” he told University World News.

However, according to Azihou, universities and lectures have no incentive to produce quality graduates. Lecturers spend 80% of their time teaching undergraduates and what little time is left they use to supervise and conduct research with their postgraduate students.

“Governments should change the funding mechanism for undergraduates and thereby the incentive structure for universities. So, education resulting in high employment rates is rewarded and education resulting in high unemployment rates punished,” he said.

He said governments should provide the required infrastructure, equipment, conducive environment and fund allocation for national research and channel it into sectors with the strongest growth potential through transparent competitive processes, to enhance the research-based teaching nexus.

Memorandum of understanding

The Malawi meeting saw the signing of a memorandum of understanding, or MoU, between RUFORUM and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as not only part of RUFORUM’s aims to build the capacity of African universities to teach agriculture, but also to increase the number of student internships and placements available – one way to nurture practical skills in students.

The two institutions agreed to team up and improve food and nutrition security, sustainability of agricultural and food systems, reduce poverty as well as achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa.

Dr Daniel Gustafson, deputy director-general for programmes at FAO, who signed the MoU on behalf of the UN organisation, said Africa must increase the quality of agricultural higher education which will strengthen the food and agriculture sectors on the continent.

Signing on behalf of RUFORUM, its vice-chair of the board, Professor Kanyama-Phiri, said students from member universities will be able to access up-to-date knowledge and skills to produce high-quality agricultural research that will enable them to generate innovative development solutions.

Ultimately, the FAO and RUFORUM partnership will increase placements for students in FAO country-level programmes and the FAO e-learning hub.

James Okoth, resilience officer for FAO Malawi, said the MoU will enable them to formalise the collaboration between Malawi universities and the FAO’s Malawi office in terms of students' internship placements and access to the e-learning material provided by FAO.

During the AGM, RUFORUM also held a leadership and management training pre-event for principals and deans facilitated by the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research, or PASGR.

PASGR aims to increase the capacity of researchers and academic institutions to contribute research that informs social policy and governance through collaborative higher education programmes.

Professor Paul Zaleza, vice-chancellor of the United States International University-Africa in Kenya, encouraged participants to interact with both the teaching and non-teaching staff to know the culture that drives their universities.

He also advised the leaders to have intercultural and interdisciplinary dialogues which promote internationalisation and suggested that they review curricula in order to meet market demands.

Zaleza highlighted four key performance areas for principals and deans: manage the different sectors of the faculty effectively; provide leadership with a vision; advocacy by connecting the top and lower management; and being the voice and face of the institution.

Mastercard Foundation partnership

Meanwhile, RUFORUM has teamed up with the Mastercard Foundation in a partnership that aims to transform African agricultural universities to contribute meaningfully to Africa’s development.

MasterCard Foundation is pioneering efforts to enable African agricultural graduates and agriculture universities to better respond to developmental challenges through the enhanced application of science, technology, business and innovation for rural agricultural transformation.

Over a period of eight years, the MasterCard Foundation and RUFORUM team will provide 110 bachelor and 110 masters scholarships tenable at Egerton University in Kenya and Gulu University in Uganda.

Advertisements for scholarships targeting academically deserving yet economically disadvantaged students from marginalised communities and those coming from conflict and post-conflict areas of Africa, were published in the media on 2 November.

Since 2004, RUFORUM has supported the training of over 2,152 postgraduate students and the generation of over 300 agricultural technologies, and mobilised over US$169 million for strengthening postgraduate education in Africa.