Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Africa

Debates about autonomy and accountability in African higher education are as old as the earliest universities on the continent. The report of the Asquith Commission (1945), which led to the founding of some of the earliest university colleges in Sub-Saharan Africa, which later became fully fledged universities, for example, University of Ghana (1948), University of Ibadan (1948), Khartoum University College (1949), Makerere University College (1949), makes the point that “it was essential that Colonial universities should be autonomous in the sense in which the universities of Great Britain are autonomous” (Colonial Office 1945, p. 34). Regarding accountability, the report emphasizes that these universities “should be required, for example, to publish an annual report accompanied by a financial statement… and it is reasonable that that periodic visitations should take place by a properly constituted authority” (p. 34). From the outset, it was deemed appropriate and desirable that...