Integrating Governance into University Education: Workshop for African Academics

On 20-21 May 2009, SAIIA's Governance and APRM Programme hosted a workshop in Johannesburg entitled 'Integrating Governance into University Education: Workshop for African Academics'. Lecturers and professors from eight African countries attended, to explore how teaching, learning, research and publishing on governance issues can be strengthened on the continent. Click here for the workshop report, and continue reading for the Executive Summary. 

Executive Summary

It is no revelation that the failure of Africa to fulfil the promises of independence, particularly those relating to national development and upliftment of its people from poverty, disease and other forms in part of depravation stems from a failure of governance. This raises the issue of how African countries and their societies are governed, and makes governance a priority area if progress is to be achieved. The African peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is a continent-wide voluntary mechanism that 29 members of the African Union (AU) have committed to undertake in order to foster the adoption of policies that lead to economic development, good governance and regional integration -objectives of the African Union's New Economic partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) has been involved in various aspects of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) since 2002.Our interaction with a wide range of APRM actors and stakeholders has highlighted the centrality and importance of universities in APR countries as centres of the skills and research capacity needed to undertake a credible peer review. Also prominent in the comments of APRM actors has been the need to strengthen university education in the area of governance, generally in support of good governance and national development, and specifically for the purposes of supporting the APRM.
The Institute has therefore found it apt, after conducting a scoping study of governance education in African universities, to bring together African academics involved in teaching and researching governance-related subjects to deliberate over the question of how the issues and topics highlighted in the APRM may be integrated into university teaching as a way of strengthening governance on the continent. This was the main theme of a workshop on "integrating Governance into University Education" that was convened by SAIIA in Johannesburg, South Africa on 20 and 21 May 2009. A secondary objective of the meeting was to agree on the establishment of a network of African academics for mutual support in teaching and research around governance issues.

This gathering brought together about twenty Academics from eight English-speaking African countries to deliberate on these issues, and to agree on a preliminary working agenda for a proposed network of African academics (the Network for Governance Research in Africa (NeGRA)) to be coordinated by SAIIA.

The workshop was opened with a Keynote address by Professor Kwesi Kwaa Prah, a prominent African scholar and Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of African Society in Cape Town, who highlighted the challenges facing the African higher education sector in relation to its contribution to development and good governance. He noted that the agenda of integrating APRM (and governance) into tertiary education was not only unique and innovative, but needed serious consideration as universities in all societies are the engine of development and custodians of societal values that should lead to advancement. Professor Prah also highlighted the political, bureaucratic and logistical challenges that such an initiative would have to overcome in order to succeed.

Participants in the workshop were in consensus regarding the challenges to higher education in Africa generally, which include decaying infrastructure, limited (and declining) resources, growing student numbers and workloads, and increasing demands for both quality and quantity of their products (in the form of research and graduates). These against a background of competing policy priorities by governments and perceived irrelevance of higher education -as compared to basic primary and vocational education. The challenges specific to teaching governance include the truncation of the subject matter among traditional academic departments, difficult (and often overtly hostile) relations between academia and government, and the perceived limited direct utility value of disciplines such as Sociology and Political Science to the needs of national development. Universities' own governance weaknesses compound these challenges.

In this context, efforts by Africans to understand, uphold and promote the values of good governance are undermined. Thus the need to support such initiatives as the APRM, which are aimed at improving governance at all levels of society, to help grow tomorrow's "governors" who understand, believe and live by the principles of good governance. Hence the importance of the university as the generator of knowledge and culture, as the source of research and analysis, of debate and discussion; and as the training ground for future leaders who are entrusted with developing their communities, nations and the continent.

In order to support African academics alleviate the challenges identified, the workshop agreed on the establishment of a network that will, among others, provide a facility for the exchange of teaching and research material; and the promotion of scholarship, research and publication. Initially, the network will comprise delegates to the SAIIA workshop, but will eventually be expanded to include institutional membership as a way of integrating the subjects of governance into the programmatic and curriculum offerings available at African institutions of higher learning. SAIIA was nominated as the coordinating node of the network.

The workshop resolved to further convene a second meeting in early 2010, at which members of the Network for Governance Research in Africa will assess progress made on the preliminary agenda, which includes the "marketing" of NeGRA; development of the network's research agenda; and identification of strategic cooperation modes from exercises and studies that members shall have undertaken in their home countries to delineate the scope of activities. The workshop shall further evaluate the success of initial phase activities agreed, including the sharing of research material, distribution of mutually-beneficial information (including future funding opportunities); and mobilisation of funds for research and exchange programmes.
The principle, in general, was agreed that the Network should begin in small steps a

s an informal "alliance" of like-minded individuals, with formalisation and institutionalisation to follow only once demonstrable benefits have been realised; and that experience-sharing and strategic thinking should be the core values of the "peer learning" that the Network seeks to promote. The encouragement of South-South cooperation and mutual support was one of the principles stressed by participants as a guiding principle for NeGRA.