The Décalage and Bricolage of Higher Education Policymaking in an Inter/National System

Abstract

In the immediate postindependence era, universities in Africa were often described by African scholars as “engines” (Ki-Zerbo 1974) of national development and “the greatest weapon of nation building” (Habte and Wagaw 1993, 680). African governments worked to turn these colonial institutions into national universities that would transform not only the individuals who attended them but also the African nations themselves. The reality today, however, is that many public campuses are chronically underfunded and overcrowded. African faculty members are leaving for jobs abroad with greater remuneration and better working conditions; buildings are in need of renovation; and students’ studies are interrupted by strikes as well as prolonged by purposeful decisions to remain on scholarship rather than graduate and face a weak labor market.