Research for Development and Poverty Reduction

Evidence from Africa

Nico Cloete and Peter MaassenNORAD Conference, Oslo

Litteraturhuset1 November 2012

Across the developing world, higher education is coming in from the cold. Gone are the days when it was purely a luxury for the elite. ....there has also been a revolution in economic thinking. Not so long ago the World Bank pooh-poohed spending on higher education as both economically inefficient and socially regressive. Now many development economists are warming to higher education, pointing to the demand for graduates…and to the positive effect of university-based research on the economy.

(The Economist, 8 September 2005 – afterG8 meeting at Gleneagles)

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Development Aid Responses

1. China - $2,5 billion for 4 new universities in Sudan (Sept 2012)

2. World Bank – Africa is on the move (Blom, Sept 2012)i. HE in Africa in general is not able to respond to the large unmet demands for

skilled professionals in booming economic sectors (e.g. extractive industries and energy) and in critical development sectors (e.g. health and agriculture). WB has committed US$800 million for institutional strengthening for appropriate skills (manpower) and centers of excellence.

3. US Aid - $20 million on 80 projects (2000-2005)

4. Sida and Norad - $90 million on 50 projects (2000-2005)

(Maassen, Pinheiro and Cloete, 2007)

Completely different approaches but overwhelming evidence shows that multiple, small, short-term interventions lead to minimum impact and ‘perverse incentives’

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Development Aid Responses

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NORAD: Research for Development

Conference announcement

1. Development and poverty reduction.

2. Enhance knowledge-based development.

3. Research-based knowledge is more applied to development

4. Is strengthening academia in the South also important for democracy and society at large?

Questions about NORAD assumptions:

5. Are Development and Poverty Reduction separate things?6. Is academia in the South different from academia in the North?7. Are universities only for the development knowledge, or also

for developing democracy? 8. Are Development and Democracy independent from each

other?

University not part of development strategy

University part of development strategy

No or marginal role for new knowledge in development

strategy

Central role for new

knowledge in

development strategy

AncillarySelf-

governing

Instrument Engine

The university and knowledge in development

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1. Post-independence the ‘agreement/pact’ was to produce professionals and civil servants.

2. Result: undergraduate teaching institutions and upward mobility for the new elite (private returns).

3. The development role was nation-building and ‘manpower’.

4. Privileging primary school and opposition to State, led to the ‘luxury ancillary’ notion and state interference.

5. University responded with a self-governance.

6. Foreign donors demanded a more direct instrumentalist notion – poverty reduction/community upliftment/consultancy.

7. Result: Isolated Centres of Excellence and Poverty Reduction.

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Comments: Notions of the Role of the University

1. Poor countries need development, not poverty alleviation

2. “The structural basis for the growing inequality, in spite of high GDP growth rates in many parts of the world, is the growth of a highly dynamic, knowledge-producing, technologically advanced sector that is connected to other similar sectors in a global network, but it excludes a significant segment of the economy and of the society in its own country. The lack of linking human to dynamic productive development prevents ‘the virtuous cycle of sustainable development.” (Castells and Cloete, 2011)

3. Poverty alleviation in a poor country without a dynamic productive sector is a contradiction in terms.

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Tension: Development vs Poverty Reduction

CountryGDP per capita (PPP, $US) 2007

GDP rankingHDI Ranking

(2007)

GDP ranking per capita minus HDI

ranking

Botswana 13 604 60 125 -65

Mauritius 11 296 68 81 -13

South Africa 9 757 78 129 -51

Chile 13 880 59 44 +15

Costa Rica 10 842 73 54 +19

Ghana 1 334 153 152 1

Kenya 1 542 149 147 2

Mozambiqu

e802 169 172 -3

Uganda 1 059 163 157 6

Tanzania 1 208 157 151 6

Finland 34 256 23 12 11

South Korea 24 801 35 26 9

USA 45 592 9 13 -4

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita versus Human Development Index (HDI)

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Country

Stage of development

WEF(2009-2010)

Gross tertiary education

enrolment rate (2009)

Overall global competitive

ranking (2010-2011)

Ghana

Stage 1: Factor-driven

6 114

Kenya 4 106

Mozambique 2 131

Tanzania 2 113

Uganda 5 118

BotswanaTransition from

1 to 2 20+ 76

Mauritius Stage 2: Efficiency-driven

26 + 55

South Africa 18 54

FinlandStage 3:

Innovation-driven

94 7

South Korea 98 22

United States 82 4

Tertiary participation rate and development

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Research Project: Higher Education and Economic Development in Africa (Cloete, Maassen, et al., 2012)

• Three successful (OECD) systems◦ Finland (Europe), South Korea (Asia), North Carolina (US)

• Africa◦ Botswana – University of Botswana ◦ Ghana – University of Ghana◦ Kenya – University of Nairobi ◦ Mauritius – University of Mauritius◦ Mozambique – Eduardo Mondlane University◦ South Africa – Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan◦ Tanzania – University of Dar es Salaam◦ Uganda – Makerere University 10

Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network (HERANA) Funders: Carnegie, Ford, Norad, Rockefeller, Kresge

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The analytical premises

Higher education’s role in and contribution to development is dependent on three inter-related factors:

1. The nature of the Pact between the university leadership, political authorities, funders and society at large

2. The nature, strength and continuity of the Academic Core

3. The nature and management of the Connectedness between the university and externally funded projects

Findings:1. None of the 8 countries had broadly agreed on a development

model (except for Mauritius) – many distant visions (2020/30/50).

2. Mauritius was the only country that stated upfront that knowledge is a key driver of economic growth and that higher education has a key role to play – instrumentalist vs engine of development.

3. There were, however, clear signs of an emerging awareness about the importance of the knowledge economy in all the countries – generally stronger at the national than at the institutional level.

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The Pact

1. Increased enrolments in science, engineering and technology (SET) – AU regards SET as a development driver.

2. Increased postgraduate (PG) enrolments – knowledge economy requires increasing numbers of workers with PG qualifications.

3. Favorable academic staff to student ratio – workload should allow for research and PhD supervision.

4. High proportion of academic staff with PhDs – high correlation (0.82 in South Africa) between doctorates and research output.

5. Adequate research funding per academic – and from multiple sources.

6. High graduation rates in SET fields – not only must enrolments increase, but also graduate output.

7. Increased knowledge production (doctoral graduates) – for reproduction of academic core, to produce academics for other universities and for demand in other fields.

8. Increased knowledge production – research publications in ISI peer-reviewed journals.

Academic Core: Input/output Indicators

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Publications (Web of Science, 2010)

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20

08

20

09

20

10

232

338

381

122 129

169

90 91 89

Makerere Ghana Dar es Salaam

Eduard

o M

ondla

ne

Mauri

tius

Dar

es

Sala

am

Bots

wana

Ghana

Nair

obi

Make

rere

UC

T45 62 89 107

169 198

381

1516No. of publications % SET

Cape Town Ghana Makerere

1118

160

760

151

23 30

1339

310

832

160

2355

2008 Masters 2008 Doctoral

2010 Masters 2010 Doctoral

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Masters and doctoral graduates: 2008 vs 2010

Ratio of masters to doctoral enrolmentsAverages for 2008 to 2010

Target ratio 4.0Cape Town 3.7Ghana 18.7Makerere 9.1

• Despite dramatic increases in masters enrolments, PhD enrolment is growing very slowly (at Nairobi – masters grew from 3900 to 6100; doctorates decreased from 190 to 62).

• On the output side, SET graduation rates are positive, but all institutions (except Cape Town) have low knowledge production.

• Perverse incentive structures promote ‘triple teaching’ and consultancies over research and doctoral supervision.

• From the weak knowledge production output indicators it seems the academic cores are not strong enough to make a sustainable contribution to development.

Academic Core and Knowledge Production

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Articulation - direct or indirect to national development priorities and or instructional strategic objectives

Strengthening academic core - link to teaching/curriculum development, involve students as part of their formal training, project reported in academic publications, link to international academic networks

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Articulation and Connecting Projects to the Academic Core

• High level of ‘arbitrariness’ and fragmentation in the funding, sustainability and connectedness of externally funded projects

• Successful projects represent high quality niches, but disconnected inside their own university.

• Development Aid donors and government agencies often weaken the academic core of the receiving universities through ‘projectization’, by expecting top academic staff members to coordinate consultancy projects

Connectivity

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1. A weak Pact in which a new Knowledge Economy discourse is developing, but it is not yet reflected in coordinated policies, nor in a reprioritisation of resources and incentives.

2. An academic core which is continuing to be efficient in producing undergraduates, but not doctorates and research output

3. Perverse incentive structures promote ‘triple teaching’ and consultancies over research and doctoral supervision.

4. While many academics are involved in development related projects many of these projects do not strengthen the academic core, nor contribute to development in a sustainable manner.

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Key Findings: Pact, Academic Core, Connectivity

1. The importance of knowledge and higher education for sustainable development is global, but there are contextual and regional differences.

2. What is universal is that the university is the key knowledge institution for knowledge-generative capacity that underlies sustainable development.

3. There are persistent attempts to depict the relationship between knowledge and development as a direct one - to demonstrate ‘relevance’, utility, applicability and belies the deep desire to ‘do something’ in what is frequently a parlous, or under-development, situation.

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Basic argument (1)

5. In the African context, Flagship universities have a crucial role as producers of appropriately skilled professionals, research skills, academic staff for other institutions and as nodes for knowledge networks.

6. Strengthening the Academic Core of the Flagship universities could also be a driver for strengthening the national tertiary education system.

7. It is not the university as such that needs to become integrated with the private sector and or the community, but it is the nature of the bridge or connection between higher education and society that needs to be re-interpreted, and studied. One cannot expect the linkages between various nodes (private sector, universities, government) to be effective if the nodes themselves are still weak!

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Basic argument (2)

1. Development agencies should adopt the same model for the role

of higher education in their own country (engine of development).

2. Development aid, governments and institutions must pay more attention to forging an agreement (pact) on the importance of universities in development – booming ‘resource curse’.

3. To build capacity requires knowledge (research) about the knowledge institutions and evidence based planning for both institutional leadership, funders and government departments. Part of this is the institutionalisation and analysis of system and institutional performance indicator data.

4. In order for African as well as globally produced knowledge to connect much more effectively to various application sites in the African context the role of the African flagship universities as research institutions needs to be strengthened dramatically.

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Suggestions

Dr Nico Cloetencloete@chet.org.zawww.chet.org.za

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