The International Partnerships in Higher Education: Breaking

The International Partnerships in Higher Education: Breaking the gravity of
the Extraversion Culture, Sowing the Grains of Change in Africa’s Higher
Education Institutions
Prof. Germain Ngoie Tshibambe
Department of International Relations
University of Lubumbashi / Katanga
Democratic Republic of the Congo
[email protected] |
[email protected]
Tél: +243 (0) 818153060
Abstract
Beyond constraints due to globalization which impact Higher education institutions in
Africa, it is important to recognize that there are also windows of opportunities that are
likely to sustain these institutions so as they can meet their task of offering teaching and
research at the service of their society. In fact, these institutions are passing a time of
crisis due to the reduction of funding from the state. International partnerships in higher
education sector are having some effects on higher education institutions in the
Democratic Republic of Congo. Despite the good intentions of the international
partnerships, some of the positive effects clash with local norms. This paper tries to
understand the dynamics of the international partnerships in higher education and uses
the Democratic Republic of Congo as a case study. The paper emphasises new values and
new impetus so as to let higher education institutions meet their functions that advantages
the national and local society.
Key words: higher education, funding, international partnerships, DRC.
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Introduction
Globalization is framing many aspects of the life within societies worldwide. If according
to Mittleman globalization implies “the compression of time and of space” (1997: 3), it is
worth noticing what Zaki Laidi comes to put emphasis on as it is induced surreptiously
from the new era that is the complex process of uniformization/homogenization of
practices and ideas (1994). At the discursive level as it concerns analyzing the current
global world, focus is put mainly on economic features of globalization and the light
thrown on the “great transformation” has been grasped by Polanyi (1957). This fact is
evidenced by Mittleman as he writes: “Driven by changing modes of competition,
globalization compresses time and space aspects of social relations. In short,
globalization is a market-induced, not a policy-led, process” (1997: 3). Should
globalization be based on market requirement whilst this is true needs to take into
account the fact that it becomes at the same time a policy-led process. Ball et al. (2010:
525) suggest that “globalization is deployed by politicians in diverse settings around the
world as a necessary and ineluctable driver of (non economic issues) reform”. The
cultural transformation under the stream of globalization is going on and its effects are
about to draw its signature worldwide. The education sector is under pressures of being
formatted accordingly thanks to globalization requirements. According to Ball et al.
(2010:524), “the marketization and commodification of the social turned many social
goods into commodities and opened up the education systems to the private sector. (…)
this neoliberal version of globalization indirectly imposes particular policies for
evaluation, financing, assessment, standards, teacher training, curriculum, instruction and
training. In Europe these pressures led European leaders to draw up the Bologna
declaration and engage in a process aiming among other things to turn European higher
education into a competitive product on a global scale. In the US, such liberal trends have
led to the Standards-based Accountability Movement, with its emphasis on high-stakes,
standardized testings as a singular indicator of school success.”
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The globalization-induced revolution in the higher education sector has already taken
place in the global North. It is spreading its effects slowly and in a multifaceted way on
the similar higher education institutions in the global South. As is the case in the North,
the higher education institutions in the global South are called to engage transformational
dialogue with their societies while being connected to the global trends which shape this
sector worldwide. Higher education institutions in Africa are required to get adjustment
to the global trends of the education requirements and they should play a great role in the
transformation of their societies. Marco Antonio Dias, Director at the Division of Higher
Education–UNESCO is right as he puts, “While different regions face very diverse
economic and cultural challenges, their overall aim for higher education is strikingly
similar –namely, to ensure the production of skilled human resources whose education
and training can be placed at the service of society. In this way, higher education
contributes to full human and social development which is the guiding force of
UNESCO‟s co-operative action” (1994). Exchanges, dialogues, and any sort of
cooperation are taking place in the education sector in order to contribute to
strengthening higher education institutions in Africa. Ideas are flourishing, monetary
fluxes are being transacted from the North to the South, and multifaceted initiatives are
taken in the support of this new strategic site, i.e. the education. All these initiatives are
part of the interactive, collaborative action-oriented dialogue between the higher
education institutions worldwide1. The growing importance of international cooperation
in the education sector stems from the fact that education is deemed the new frontier of
combat for helping societies to face challenges in the globalized world. Job Akuni et al.
put emphasis on the new and growing critical task education is about to meet with as they
highlight “pressure on higher education to provide portable, economically relevant
qualifications in a system that is fully accountable with a need to accommodate a
diversity of cultural and economic influences whilst moving towards a compatible
qualifications system. This is because higher education has been identified as a critical
element of development in which countries must invest in earnest, if they have to make
progress in a world that feeds on knowledge and thrives on competition. It has been
1
“The term linkage is generally used to indicate co-operation between a Northern and a Southern
institution”, says Van Audenhove, 1999, p.19.
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argued that education plays a great role in narrowing the income gap between developing
countries and the developed economies. In that case, therefore, higher education becomes
a pivotal institution that these countries will need to develop and improve in order to
meet this challenge” (Akuni et al., 2010, p.4).
It is worth mentioning that higher education institutions in Africa face hardships and the
rationale of the international partnerships is likely to support Africa‟s higher education
sector so as to let them reach their objectives which are three-fold as Sherman
conceptualises the African university by emphasising the need to link the institutional and
broader contexts, to actualise its societal missions and to contribute to solving Africa's
ever-pressing problems” (quoted by Assié-Lumumba, 2006, p.71). It suffices to say that
the implicit rationale of international partnerships in higher education is so far based on
the modernization theory as it induces the diffusion of advantages of modernity from the
North to the South higher education institutions. In this paper, we want to go beyond the
current crisis which is rampant in the higher education institutions in Africa in order to
think of new and best practices aiming at pushing these institutions towards their
efficiency and their ability to provide quality service. Indeed, the term “crisis” which is
used throughout this paper should be revisited for it does not imply only the dysfunction
of the higher education institutions, but also it is important to notice that these institutions
are facing new challenges they try to meet with thanks to diverse fortune and scarce
means. Instead of speaking about Africa in general, our approach puts focus specifically
on a country-case study, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Therefore, in the following
sections, we start by delineating some features of the ''African condition'' in the higher
education sector particularly in DRC; after description of this context, analysis of the
international partnerships in the higher education in DRC will be done by emphasizing its
assessment and impact on the local universities. As there is still an impasse a way
forward needs to be overseen by using a strategic prescriptive approach.
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Features of the African condition in higher education sector
It is Mazrui's style to have used the term “African condition” in order to refer to the
predicament, let us say the crisis which did catch up with most African countries by the
late 1980s to early 1990s. This crisis is mainly economic and it related to development
crisis many countries of the continent faced from 1970s on. According to Tade Akin
Aina, “This was the time when a combination of adverse conditions such as the crash in
commodity markets and the rapid rise of oil prices began to manifest themselves. The
resulting economic downturn produced the first serious “fiscal crisis of the state” in
postcolonial Africa. Many governments found themselves with serious balance-ofpayment deficits, leading them to resort to bilateral, multilateral, and private international
(predominantly Western) financiers for short- and long-term credit. As the indebtedness
of the states grew, resolving the problem became an increasingly coordinated affair
between a group of poor, heavily indebted countries and their creditors made up of
national governments, international organizations, and private enterprises. The dominant
institutional actors in these negotiations and efforts at adjustment and recovery were the
Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs), namely the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund” (2010, pp.26-27). The development predicament as it is observed in
Africa discloses two important aspects among numerous ones worth being noticed, the
first one is the shortage of state capacity to get financial resources to allocate for societal
needs and the second aspect is the dependency-driven exit which leads African states to
the indebtedness and to be geared by the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank. Meanwhile, by 1980s many African countries were implementing the structural
adjustment programmes. Besides the economic dimension of the crisis which has effects
on the higher education institutions in the African continent, it needs to unravel the fact
that the politics in the continent has also an impact on the HEIs. Such is the case of what
Tade Akin Aina calls the “authoritarian politics” the manifestation of which
“significantly affected higher education even in countries with enlightened political
leadership such as Tanzania”(2010, p.27). The development and political crises will
impact the higher education institutions in Africa and in DRC as well.
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“Universities in crisis”, such is the telling observation through which Leo Zeilig and
Marcelle Dawson (2008, p. 4-6) depict universities in Africa. The situation of the HEIs in
DRC is commonly like the general one depicted elsewhere in Africa. But it is worth
trying to situate the universities in the DRC in their settings by drawing on three
“historical seashores” (Foucault, 1968). The first seashore spanned from the 1960s to the
1970s. When the DRC got the independence in 1960, the Belgian colonial administration
left only three universities for all the country eighty times bigger than its metropole. The
three universities were situated in the three poles of the country and were as divided as
was the metropolitan politics. The first university located in Leopoldville (Kinshasa) is
the offspring of the Belgian catholic University of Louvain; the second university
belonging to the Protestant church is implanted in Stanleyville (Kisangani) whereas the
third and non-denominational university is located in Elisabethville (Lubumbashi). For
one decade, the three universities evolved as they were geared by the founding colonial
structure: they maintained the Belgian predominance at the top academic and teaching
staff and their curriculum was forged according to the late period of their inception. In
order to own the control of the university education, Mobutu's regime undertook a reform
in the 1970s in uniting the management of the three universities and all other higher
education institutions in creating a centralised structure called the Zaire's National
University (UNAZA). This centralised-led reform was undertaken in the context where
Mobutu's regime was facing a nationalistic challenge in trying to get a hold on the natural
resources of the country with the struggle against the big colonial-led companies that still
dominated the Zaire's economy. In 1966, the nationalisation of the large mining company
of Katanga, the so-called Gécamines (Générale des Carrières et des Mines) took place
leading to the retaliation from the international finance milieu against Mobutu. The
second reform made by Mobutu was his policy of authenticity that accelerated the
conflict between the regime and the Catholic Church. According to Kola2, an informant
whom I collected the narrative during this research:
Between 1967 and 1970, many expatriate professors, mainly of the Belgian
nationality left the Congo and in the meanwhile, Mobutu's government used
2
Kola is a pseudonym. He is one among the eldest Congolese professors still in activity.
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the young graduate Congolese who had just completed university degrees in
order to teach at the university (interview in April 2011).
The main higher education institution the first generation of the Congolese professors
came from is the National School of Law and Administration (ENDA as is the
abbreviation in French) located in Leopoldville.
The creation of the UNAZA opened up the second phase (1970-1993) of the change in
the DRC universities that was mainly driven by the centralisation and the state-led
control upon the higher education institutions. The rationale of this control has been
observed everywhere in some countries in Africa as is the case in Ghana where “Ajayi,
Goma, and Johnson document the struggles between Kwame Nkrumah and the ruling
nationalist party at independence, the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), and the
predominantly expatriate authorities of what was then University College, Legon, over its
affiliation with the university of London and other related autonomy issues” (quoted by
Akin Aina, 2010, p.28). This conflict is summarized as follows:
“To some extent, the politicians regarded the universities, dominated as
they were by expatriate staff, as part of the apparatus of imperialism,
comparable to multinational corporations, which had to be decolonized.
To that extent, the politicians had the support of many African academics
in their struggle to control and direct the universities. In what has been
called ''a destructive conflict,'' it was the expatriate staff defending their
established privileges who called for the defence of university autonomy
and maintenance of universal standards while the African staff, many of
whom felt alienated and discriminated against, tended to seek the
intervention of politicians to give the universities a national character and
ensure rapid Africanization”(Ajayi et al. quoted by akin Aina, 2010, p.
28).
Mobutu's authoritarian politics succeeded in framing control upon the UNAZA. The top
academic offices became political posts as the officials were named by “presidential
ordinances”. While politicising and controlling academic life in installing the state-party
structures at the administrative level (university authorities and students as well had been
incorporated in the party-state), the patrimonialistic rationale of conducting state affairs
led to the shortage of financial resources allocated to universities. In fact during
Mobutu'era as it is the case now, the official budget allocated to university management
only remains “on paper”: no money is given from Kinshasa to local institutions which are
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obliged to fend for themselves. According to Sesep N‟Sial, “the State budget towards the
higher education sector in DRC represented 4.92 % in 1988 and 0.71 % in 2001. The
share in the percentage out of the yearly average cost per student concerning the 1998s up
to 2000s is of 5.1 % for the State and of 94.9 % for the family” (2007, pp.27-28). What is
also important to notice is the fact that from the 1960s up to the 2001s, the State budget
allocation to higher education sector is going decrescendo (30 % in 1960, 19.7 % in 1970,
16.8 % in 1983, 9.6 % in 1988, 0.5 % in 1994 and 0.3 % in 2001) (Ekwa bis Isal, quoted
by Sesep, 2004, p.27). Therefore the conditions of higher education in DRC seen from
the perspective of the university's physical infrastructure and the pauperisation of staff
and students declined steeply in the 1980s. The effects of structural adjustment
programmes have greatly exacerbated the withdrawal of state funding for universities,
teaching staff and students. In 1984, the monthly scholarship afforded to student was
suppressed. During this period, the expatriate professors had already left Congo,
Congolese professors at the university level were left alone living and faced with this
kind of unilateral academic moment.
The consequences of such “deprioritised higher education” (Zeilig & Dawson, 2008, p. 6)
in DRC are obviously telling: teaching and research are done as a routinized activity;
teachers have extramural activities in order to meet with the life needs; impoverished
students face hardships in the campus (Rubbers & Petit, 2009, p. 649; Dibwe, 2005). The
routinisation of teaching and the lack of research lead to a kind of teaching aiming only at
“the production of manpower, (and not) the empowerment of students to be critical
thinkers”. The foundation of such a teaching refers to what Paulo Freire calls “the
banking pedagogy” –the kind of teaching that views students primarily as “containers” or
“receptacles” to be “filled” by the all-knowing teacher”(quoted by Chenge, 2009, p. 66).
This implies that the only visible aspect of higher education institutions in DRC is their
physical decay. The DRC problematic scenarios are similar to those of the institutions of
higher education in Nigeria as Femi Aborisade describes:
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“First, infrastructural facilities are inadequate, yet student numbers increase
annually. Second, higher education is grossly understaffed. Third, libraries
are inadequate and books are outdated. Moreover, many students are too poor
to buy their own books. Fourth, remuneration is sometimes delayed and not
always paid in full, leading some lecturers to acquire bits of money through
other means, such as charging students for photocopied lecture notes. Fifth,
the supply of basic services such as water, electricity and sanitation is erratic.
Upon occasion, lecturers and students have had to relieve themselves in
nearby bushes. Finally, many of the problems experienced by institutions of
higher education can be attributed to under-funding” (Aborisade quoted by
Zeilig & Dawson, 2008, p. 5).
In order to address the challenges faced by the higher education institutions in DRC
and in the context of the political transition, there were institutional reforms which
resulted in ending the epoch of state-centric management of universities. The third
seashore (1994-2009) started with a reform based on the autonomy given to public
universities; this autonomy was followed by the creation of new faculties and
schools and the rising registration fees. Another feature of this period is the creation
of numerous universities. Whereas existing universities were public, the higher
education landscape saw the birth of private universities, a new configuration that
resulted in the segmentation of education systems featured by the binary splits
opposing the public to the private university education institutions and within
which the public higher education institution is more valued than the private
institution (Bianchini, 2004, pp. 27-30). What is important to notice is that the
structural trends shaping the nature, the rationale and “the ways of doing things”
(de Certeau) at the higher education level have not changed in spite of
discontinuities in reforms introduced by Mobutu‟s regime reforms. These trends are
as follows: the decreased state funding, the increasing demand for education at the
university level, the paradoxical process of academic degree devaluation and the
absence of international partnerships. The process of academic degree devaluation
is due to the drastic limits of the labour market unable to provide employment
opportunities to the yearly growing number of Congolese youth completing
university degrees. But this process even though it is socially constructed and
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translated by such by-words as Falanse ki mfalanga to3 (“French is not money”)
competed with the contradictory high demand for university education demand.
Early in 2000, DRC‟s universities came to be in touch with partner universities
from the North. Belgian universities initiated setting up new partnerships with the
Congolese ones. What is in stake is how to help the Congolese universities shift
“from a bureaucratic institution to an entrepreneurial organization” (Rubbers, 2004,
p.318). Moreover, this shift implies helping DRC‟s universities to reinforce their
capacity to address all the challenges of managing their universities. It is also
important to remember that in 2003 a reform was undertaken in DRC in all the
public higher education institutions. The reform consisted of reframing the
curriculum and creating new departments at the level of faculties. Two tasks were
targeted from the education system in DRC: to sustain the national reconciliation
after the war that was wagged the country in getting Congolese youth apron to the
“culture for peace” and to make the students be able to face the entrepreneurship in
the labour market.
Expanding international partnerships from the North to DRC’s HEIs
After having been in diplomatic isolation due to the killings of students in the campus of
Lubumbashi in May 1990, Mobutu‟s regime was short of means of support to run the
country. The diplomatic isolation impacted many aspects of the national life. Such is the
case of the university and academic life which resulted into academic isolation. DRC‟s
universities faced a predicament due to its “deprioritisation” (Zeilig & Dawson, 2008,
p.6) related to the shortage of state funding; there was also a patrimonialistic management
of universities giving way to social networks, to the impunity and the decay of the
infrastructure and the ageing of the teaching personnel. DRC‟s universities predicament
can be depicted at the two levels, the level of administration issues and the level of
academic issues. The administration issues related to difficulties in managing the material
and human resources whereas the academic issues related to the teaching pedagogy and
3
This is used In Tshiluba language. French as a foreign language represents the school.
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curriculum content. According to Rubbers and Petit, “In 1990s, the University of
Lubumbashi was already a big university having more than 20 thousands students. But it
was after two decades of storm in a critical situation. Its buildings were generally ill-kept
and very old. With an irregular salary varying between 15 and 60 USD per month, the
personnel trafficked in administrative and teaching services and in the after-noon they
were absent from the offices so as to do their own business outside the university (taxidriver, pastor, trader, so on.) Last, the number of students as they were enrolled
overcrowded the logistical capacities of the university for at its inception, the university
could but receive 4 thousands students whereas there were more than 18
thousands”(Rubbers and Petit, 2009, p.649).
In this context, the University Committee for Development4/Belgium sent an exploratory
delegation to Lubumbashi and Kinshasa in order to have contacts with DRC‟s
universities academic authorities so as to oversee perspectives of opening up official
linkages. According to Roger5, a Belgian Professor I spoke with:
When we came in order to explore perspectives of cooperation between the
University of Lubumbashi and us, it was in 1999. The country was still in
war. The university was decaying; there was no funding from the state; the
ageing personnel were telling evidence of doing something for renewing the
personnel. But the resilience of the university was strong and it impressed us.
Professors were day to day ready for teaching activities. The will to learn at
the university was commonly felt by the Congolese youth.
Nowadays several higher education institutions in DRC are in partnerships with the
French speaking Universities of Belgium thanks to the University Committee for
Development (UCD). The linkage between the DRC‟s universities and the French
speaking ones of Belgium is not, according to Van Audenhove‟s typology, “a project
model”, but instead “a programme model”. “The programme model is more broadly
structured and aims at the achievement of several objectives, covers a great variety of
activities and is implemented at faculty or institutional level” (1999, p.21). In 2000 on
4
The UCD is a permanent committee of the Interuniversity Council of the French Community of Belgium.
It is in charge of defining and implementing the policy for cooperation which is common to French
speaking universities of Belgium so as to reinforce the South‟s universities in their task of formation,
research and service to society (CUD, 2008-2009).
5
Roger is a pseudonym. He was one among of the members of the Belgian delegation coming for the
partnerships between the UNILU and the University Committee for Development.
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diverse HEIs in DRC were involved in the international partnerships. Such is the case of
the University of Kinshasa, the University of Lubumbashi, the University of Kisangani,
the Higher Pedagogical Institute of Bukavu, the Catholic University of Graben, the
University of Mbuji Mayi, the Catholic University of Bukavu, the Centre of Research in
Natural Sciences of Lwiro, the Centre of Documentation for the Higher and University
Teaching and Research of Kinshasa. From 2008 up to 2012, there is currently the
implementation of the P3 i.e. the third five-year programme. The P3 concerns mainly the
University of Lubumbashi and the University of Kinshasa. For this programme, the
general budget for these partnerships is about 1,091.731 Euro (CUD, 2008). The
expenses structure consists of two rubrics for which there are expenses to incur in DRC
(59.1%) and the rest in Belgium (40.9%).
The rationale of the partnerships between the CUD and the UNILU
What is important to note is that the existence of the Belgian partner universities induced
the academic authorities to draft a strategic planning document. This strategic document
is a road map which shows objectives and activities to undertake with clear expected
outcomes. Taking into account the specific situation of the UNILU, the content of the P3
emphasises organization of co-operative initiatives between the partners in order (1) to
reinforce the institutional capacity of the UNILU in realizing its academic goals; (2)to
provide the UNILU with the renewal of the teaching personnel as a way of addressing the
challenge of the ageing teaching professors; (3) to equip the UNILU with the information
and communication technologies, and (4) to open up the UNILU to its local environment.
Specific activities are organized to achieve the objectives (2),(3) and (4). The renewal of
the teaching personnel implies organizing an environment which can help the selected
teaching personnel to be able to work in fair conditions for completing their Ph.D. While
being at the UNILU in Lubumbashi, the selected personnel should get monthly financial
support such as a scholarship and offices with facilities in getting easy and free access to
the internet connection. Within the five years of the programme, it was expected to select
120 young teaching personnel (among the assistants and the graduate assistants) so as to
help them complete their Ph.D. In order to break the traditional barriers opposing
sciences and departments, thematic subject matters were selected with the aim of
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supporting the interdisciplinary approach to curricula. For instance, the UNILU has four
faculties belonging to humanities (Faculty of Law, Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Social
and Political Sciences and the Faculty of Economics and Management). For these
faculties, four thematic activities were provided to cope with (i) culture and development
of the African society, (ii) social justice and juridical security, (iii) governance and
development in developing countries and (iv) economic sciences and development.
The selected teaching personnel, under the staff development and fellowship progamme,
is entitled to a monthly stipend and three-month stay in Belgium and his/her thesis is
directed by a Congolese professor and co-directed by a Belgian professor. The placement
in Belgium aims at putting the scholar in an interactive milieu where s/he can get access
to all the documentary resources available in the university libraries. After completing the
doctoral research, the selected candidate is obliged to defend it in the DRC in the
presence of both the director and the co-director. Moreover in order to help Congolese
professors whose academic isolation prevented them from networking with other
scholarship worldwide to update their research, those who are directing doctoral
researches are given the opportunity to visit Belgium on sabbatical leave for not more
than two months.
To help the UNILU to get access to informatics and the information and communication
technologies, a transversal activity was planned consisting in equipping with all the tools
for the connectivity of the UNILU to the Internet with its own website
(www.unilu.ac.cd). The Congolese personnel with competence in informatics are
committed to the maintenance of this service with the possibility of going to Belgium for
international trainings. The objective of connecting the UNILU to the local environment
led to the creation of an activity called the “Interface University & Society”. This activity
aims at becoming a proactive incubator of investments projects in order to reinforce the
entrepreneurship of Congolese and foreign businessmen and women as well.
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The expected outcomes of the partnerships
The implementation of the P3 agreement has many outcomes. At the theoretical level, we
can break down these outcomes into two forms. There are material and immaterial
outcomes. The material outcomes are those which can be assessed as these are things we
can observe objectively. The immaterial outcomes are parts of those skills which are
acquired thanks to the implementation of the programme; those skills are needed as new
ways of doing things.
The material outcomes
Four outcomes of the partnerships are expected as follows: 1) improvement in the quality
of teaching and research. This outcome stems from the dividends acquired as the teaching
personnel benefits the mobility with the international trainings leading them to visit
North‟s universities either for methodological and epistemological updates (as it concerns
professors during their stay) or for completing their doctoral research (as it concerns
assistants); 2) creation of an environment conducive to research of high quality and open
to meet with society‟s needs. The representation of university working as an “ivory
tower” should be changed and its openness towards the local and national society is
encouraged; 3) the university governance is improved so as to reinforce its strategic
capacities of management and interaction with its society. The management of
universities in DRC is patrimonialistic; it is not driven by efficiency and quality service.
Improving such a governance is a shortcut in the process of helping Congolese
universities to face the challenge of undertaking the “transition from a bureaucratic
institution to an entrepreneurial organization” (Rubbers, 2004, p.318), and 4) the last
outcome is easing the access to information and communication. To facilitate the
circulation of information, an initial budget of 2,500 Euro is provided for buying books
whereas an activity concerning the implementation of information and communication
technologies for all the universities (at the level of the UNILU and UNIKIN) gets an
initial budget of 75,000 Euro.
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The immaterial outcomes
Beyond these material outcomes, we can consider talking about the immaterial outcomes
which consist of skills and new know-how which is keenly close to the notion of
“habitus” as it is used by Pierre Bourdieu. Among the social capital expected to stem
from the international partnerships, it suffices to note that they include: (i) strengthening
DRC‟s universities capabilities in becoming main “actor of development”. For becoming
an actor of development, the university should be a space within which people are formed
so as they are high level managers with strong capacity in formation and research; (ii)
reinforcing the university governance through inculcating and institutionalizing the
culture of evaluation, managerial skills and basic new expected social capital. Whereas
modernization theory asserts that the transfer of modern values is important to embark
everybody on the path of progress, collaborations between universities in the global
North and universities in the South may create a kind of shock between two civilizations.
In order to avoid such a shock, we instituted a procedure of mid-term evaluation of the
five years collaborative programme. This is also aimed at inducing a new culture among
the academic staff of the DRC‟s universities. At the grassroots, there are still local norms
which pose as bottlenecks in achieving sustainable international partnerships in higher
education.
Breaking the force of gravity
In linguistics when analyzing a sentence, there are two levels of grasping it –the
superficial and deep structures. There is no common ground between the two levels. The
two levels analysis is also worth applying to the understanding of the impacts of the
international partnerships in the higher education. The superficial level analysis is related
to the official reports. It consists of getting positive perspectives on the implemented
programme. While reading the activities reports of the University Committee for
Development (CUD, 2007 and 2010), there is a feeling of „‟everything is going well‟‟.
Such an optimistic view reflects the econometric foundation in the way of appraising the
implementation of the programme. The econometric foundation is driven by the logics of
presenting things in giving evidence of statistics, evidence of data concerning the monies
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and their percentage as they concern working out the activities foreseen. But the
superficial level analysis is truly a half way of grasping things deeply. It is why the
second level of analysis is pertinent. The deep structure analysis as it is applied to the
international partnerships will unravel the constraints and the limits stemming from the
encounter of the partner institutions of higher education from both the North and the
South.
Thanks to the “linkage”, DRC‟s universities come to get in touch with the partner
universities in the global North. Even if the rationale of the partnerships is to bring about
the change in the way of doing things in the universities in the South and to induce the
transformation of these universities, it is worth noticing that DRC‟s universities are still
being held back by local constraints which induce practices not likely to sustain the
expected transformation of the university. The local norms are among the bottlenecks that
nullify the linkage as it is implemented currently. The bottlenecks are as follows:
1°) The institutional management of the University. The local university governance 6 is
far from being enlightened by the three components of the good governance as it is used
according to the UNDP‟s terms of reference (participation, transparency and
responsibility). Rubbers is right when he unravels instead the three issues featuring the
DRC‟s universities institutional management, let us say the financial opacity, the
clientelism and the impunity (2009, pp.653-656). The financial opacity consists of
practices of using financial means of the university in the patrimonialistic way. As the
criminalization of state in Sub-Saharan Africa is going on in confusing public resources
with the private accumulation, such as is also the way universities and other public
institutions are managed. University top managers are not bound to take stock of their
business. This is observed in the way some activities funded by “the linkage” came to
stalemate as even if they should generate monies no financial balance sheet is released.
Some activities that should keep their own sustainability did not last for long. The
clientelism is a part of the networks that are diverse and multifaceted. The logic of
6
The governance here refers to what Michel Foucault calls „‟la gouvernementalité‟‟. By using this term, we
want to refer to the specific way of managing men/women and things having in view the participation, the
transparency and the responsibility.
17
networks is so predominant that at some strategic offices these who are acting are
nominated in so far as they are clients and members of networks of the top officials. At
the level of the teaching personnel, the nomination of the junior assistants is based on
nepotism, clientelism and ethnicity. This way of promoting the junior assistants neglects
the objective criteria of competence and moral probity that are very important for the
quality of the teaching and research personnel. The impunity is co-substantive of the
pregnancy of networks and ethnicity that shape the formal and informal interactions. This
regime comes to protect each one and there is no sanction against breaking some rules of
institutional functioning.
2°) The centrality of extraversion logic. According to Bayart, the extraversion logic is so
predominant in the conduct of the politics of African postcolonial states that it becomes
one of the strategies for accumulating power and means of being and having (1999). By
this strategy, African actors try to catch up any kind of resources coming from abroad.
This first meaning of extraversion logic should be coupled with another meaning that
explains the trend of administrative and teaching personnel to try to seek for extramural
activities so as to meet their daily needs. There is also another meaning of the
extraversion logic that is a kind of dependency-driven conduct. This dependency-driven
conduct is so pregnant that in DRC, many reforms and tentative innovations are
undertaken mainly thanks to pressures of the donor community. This is not specific
feature of DRC. Assié-Lumumba finds such a conduct in the Ivory Coast when she writes
on explaining the unrealistic expectations surrounding the 1977 reform in the university
linked to “the structure of the Ivorian society, tightly entrenched in the dependency
framework with a continued strong connection with the French system or at least under
some consistent external control”(Assié-Lumumba, 2006, p.103).
3°) The hierarchy constraint between top officials and administrative and teaching
personnel on the one hand and between professors and assistants on the other hand. It is
common evidence that hierarchy binds social interactions and as consequence there is a
kind of rigidity for social change. This constraint is a part of the “intimate tyranny” both
brutal and warm Mbembe sees at the core of post-colony (1999). Hierarchy maintains a
18
surreptitious split that is likely to create a social equilibrium which tends to obstruct
many reforms and programmes. At the level of university, many reforms are done topdown. This practice makes the bottom people think they are not concerned in
implementing and sustaining such or such programme.
4°) The deficit of research culture. This aspect is a main constraint at the university level.
Quality teaching depends on research. In DRC, libraries are not well equipped; relevant
books someone finds are scarce. Worse still, the few available literature is outdated.
There is low staff morale to do academic work and research due to low remuneration.
With high cost of living, the staff are forced to prioritise their energies to look for means
of survival. Thus reading and research become a secondary activity. This impacts the
content of teaching materials, which as mentioned earlier, are out-dated. It is asserted that
university is the setting for knowledge production: such a task is uneasy to do in DRC as
there is no system to promote the culture of institutional and Faculty research. For
instance, out of the total number of 120 candidates to be selected for being funded for
their Ph.D., 61 candidates have been selected. And now more than 40% of the selected
candidates are lagging in working out according to their chronogramme.
Taking into account all these considerations will be the first step for envisioning the path
for change. Locally, there are some potential for change as is the case of the resilience the
university is displaying. In spite of the decreasing funding from the State and the crisis
perception the university faces, there are two features worth citing. The first is the vitality
and the will to exercise the academic and administrative activities at the university as we
can observe them in the personnel; the second is the strong demand for university
education from the society. There is an urgent need for breaking down the force of
gravity that is still prevailing at the university management level.
The seed of change logic: a road for university transformation
According to Akin Aina,
“In contemporary discourses on planned change in African higher education,
perhaps the most nebulous notion has been the idea of „‟transformation.‟‟ The word
19
has been used as synonymous with reform and systemic change, but it has not
received the clarity of definition and specificity that such a political and policydriven notion deserves (…) Transformation implies practical and epistemological
ruptures with previous ways of doing things and a reconstruction of structures,
relations, cultures, and institutions. In the case of African higher education,
transformation entails going beyond reform; it involves a reexamination of
inherited institutions and how we think about and live within them, and a
reconstructing of these institutions as durable, sustainable structures geared to meet
Africa‟s needs”(Akin Aina, 2010, p.33).
For the case of the HEIs in DRC the transformation which is needed can but process from
a series of ruptures at practical and epistemological levels. At the practical level, it is
worth noticing that in DRC as elsewhere in Africa, the university education should be
considered as a public good. According to Assié-Lumumba, “the triangle of publicness
looks at public goods from three perspectives. The first is publicness in consumption: is a
good consumed by all? The second is publicness in net benefits: are the good‟s net
benefits equitably distributed? The third is publicness in decision making: who decided to
place this good in the public domain?” (Kaul and al. quoted by Assié-Lumumba, 2006, p.
131). Rendering university education a public good requires that it will benefit all the
members of the society. Therefore there is a need for a threefold action that should induce
a societal commitment for university transformation. The first action involves the policy
making level which is to change its mind and vision toward the university education.
Instead of considering the university education as a dangerous setting to control or “the
fifth wheel” of state, it is important to let the policy makers get resolved to invest by
creating legal and material environment in order to improve working conditions. The
desired societal action requires the shift of the perception on the university title. The
search of university diploma as a social status is related to the technicist conception that
views linear causal relations between enrolment policy and prospects for jobs. This view
is not relevant. Let us follow what Saad Bagi put concerning this issue: “the supply of
education should not be dictated by the availability of jobs, even if individuals and
families aim for employment at the end of the formal educational process (…) Education
should be provided to a large number even when there are no jobs. Basic and secondary
education should not be considered the normal terminal levels…Highly educated people
who do not have jobs will ask the right questions and contribute to finding solutions”
20
(quoted by Assié-Lumumba, 2006, p. 131). The third action concerns gender equity. The
disequilibrium between man and woman at the level of the university education is not
likely to support the social integration. The ratio of woman enrolment to boy at the
university level is at the disadvantage of the woman. Improving woman enrolment
becomes a priority.
The epistemological ruptures concern the organization and process of knowledge
production. Akin Aina raises pertinent issues related to these ruptures when he writes:
“Boldness and imagination in devising academic programs, reviewing and constructing
curricula, and introducing innovative pedagogies driven by public good goals are not
encouraged by market pressures, limited imagination among regulatory authorities, and
the scarcity of resources and capacities. Universities in Africa will need to significantly
change their current mode of organization knowledge production, the nature and content
of knowledge, and the kinds of partnerships they seek and pursue in order to be equal
players in the global arena while remaining relevant nationally and locally” (Akin Aina,
2010, p.36). There is a kind of international division of work in the system of knowledge
production. Theories are created in the North whereas in the South as in DRC scholarship
tries to consume only the production done elsewhere. There is a kind of poverty in
thinking theoretically in DRC. The possible way forward to address this challenge is
through integrating the “indigenous” knowledge and practice belonging to local
communities into the centre of university curricula, particularly those of human sciences
(Devisch, 1999).
Conclusion
The HEIs in DRC constitute an interesting site through which it is possible to read the
parameters of introducing social change into the society. In the global era, as Akuni et al.
put it clearly, “higher education has been identified as a critical element of development
in which countries must invest in earnest, if they have to make progress in a world that
feeds on knowledge and thrives on competition”(2010, p.4). This task is a challenge for
institutions in higher education in DRC work with resilience in providing with service of
teaching, but this teaching lacks quality and empowerment for raising the capacity of the
21
student to becoming a critical thinker and provider of change to his/her society. Research
also lacks and leaks so that it is difficult to see improvement in the knowledge
production. Since 1960 the university in DRC has undertaken many reforms implemented
in regards to the rationale of the state needs. After the independence in 1960, the reforms
rationale tended to help the state keep a control on the universities in the atmosphere of
the growing “authoritarian politics”. The state-driven control upon universities
aggravated the contradictions in managing these institutions with the effect of the loss of
autonomy and academic freedom. Due to the structural adjustment programmes that have
been implemented in the 1980s, the funding from the state became short. The policy of
authenticity implemented by Mobutu‟s regime exacerbated the academic isolation of
Congolese universities from the international scholarship. In the 2000s, the DRC‟s
universities got again in touch with foreign universities for the “linkages” initiatives.
Inspired by the “programme model”, the linkage between DRC‟s and Belgian universities
created a new context within which Congolese universities are to implement international
partnerships in higher education sector in order to sustain their capacity building and staff
development with a stress on the renewal of the teaching staff. The impact of these
partnerships consists of pouring and bringing monies to Congolese institutions, which
exacerbates the logic of extraversion. Beyond this impact and the resilience for teaching
activity notwithstanding, the international partnerships and the reforms do not introduce
the innovations spirit.
The way forward is full of challenges. Globalization stream is pushing everyone to get
aboard. New values and practices are strongly needed so as to commit the higher
education sector for a deep transformation for the society‟s progress. The university
education should be considered as a public good with specific attention to gender equity.
The epistemological ruptures are to be considered vital in the way for the transformation
of DRC‟s universities as they concern the organization and process of knowledge
production. The task is about integrating the “indigenous” knowledge and practice
belonging to local communities into the centre of university curricula, particularly those
of human sciences. The international partnerships should help the DRC‟s universities be
afloat, but time is ripe for these Congolese institutions to renew themselves in digging out
22
the inner values and energies so as to face its destiny. There is no shortcut to progress:
each nation can but use its own most relevant resources and imagination in order to
master the sense of its direction.
23
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