Extending the University for Grass-Roots Development
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Extending the University for Grass-Roots Development Ronald Clarke of the African university is three-fold: to teach- There are many ways of looking at a university ing, to research, and to service for the wider and itsrole, from both inside and outside. A community; and they discussed ways in which the conservative academic may see his institution as academic community could serve the wider com- a community of scholars, a sanctuary of the munity which would probably sound heretical highest learning, to be shared only with a small to most senior academics in Britain. This was of and select elite. A radical politician (or academic, course conference talk rather than actual de- or student) may see the same institution as a claration of specific intent, but at least it demon- bastion of privilege, outside the mainstream of strates an attitude which is an essential base for development and irrelevant to the basic needs of action. And itis by no means alltalk. The the society. A peasant farmer may also see it as present reality is in the agriculture and commun- remote from his personal needs and affairs, but ity medicine extension services; in intermediate at the same time respect it as a place of learning technology advisory units; in centres for con- and opportunity to which some of his children tinuing education and extension; in village im- or young relations may aspire. provement vacation projects by students; and in many other ways often missed by the casual or Whatever one's angle of vision it is dangerous to less percipient observer of the university and its generalise, and there is an unfortunate tendency role in a developing society. Even so, while the for some of those who, for the best reasons, wish university with no community extension services to give priority for aid to the 'poorest of the of this kind is perhaps becoming exceptional, it poor'to dismissuniversitiesaselitistcitadels is also true that few universities have any specific which have already had too large a share of the plan or stated commitment to community ser- cake. While there is undoubtedly some justifica- vice apart from a general aim of sending their tion for this assessment, it can easily miss the graduating students out to 'serve society', and do point that universities in the poorer developing little to publicise what is being done in the way countries have a potential far beyond the tradi- of community service, to the extent that one may tional role of their counterparts in the Western at times wonder whether the most senior mem- world, and can play a major role in grass-roots bers of some universities themselves know what development through extension into the com- is going on beyond the campus. munity.1 The changes in these directions which are now An interesting contrast may be seen in the con- taking place in the universities in former British- clusions of two conferences held at an interval administered countries (especially in Africa) have of ten years on the development of universities been largelyinspired byindigenouspolitical inAfrica.The1962Unesco conferenceat questioning of their role in a new nation, and Tananarive (UNESCO, 1963: 76-7) paid little or by the more socially conscious of their own no attention to the question of a university's academics. Where inspiration for greater com- responsibility to the wider community, including munity involvement has come from outside it has in the report only a couple of largely routine come from such areas as North America and references to the need for universities to promote China rather than Britain. It was the basically extra-mural and adult education activities. conservative British academic tradition which had been the dominating influence in the develop- Ten years laterthe 1972 conference of the ment of universities and whatever community in- AssocationofAfricanUniversitiesat Accra volvementtheyhadintheformerBritish (Yesufu,1973)withsenior and middle-level colonies; a tradition which, with allits many academics and administrators from universities virtues, tolerated extra-mural departments only in all over Africa, emphasised that the commitment so far as they appeared to maintain "normal academic standards", and viewed the coming of 1 The word 'community' tends to he usedimpreciselyin the Open University with deep suspicion. thesecontexts,withconnotations ranging from the total population of a country to the subsistence-level inhabitants University extension activities and services to the of a particular village. In this paper I use the term to refer primarily to the common people throughout the country or community can be grouped in various ways. The area concerned, i.e., generally those with little or no formai following may be useful for our present discus- education; where small local groups are concerned, I refer to them as such. sion:1. direct material services; 2. research and 46 consultancy-based services; 3. educational exten- services can be seen in the Technology Consul- sion. tancy Centre (TCC) at the University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana, and in the Direct material services Industrial Research and Development Unit at In thisfirst area we may include projects of the University of Ife, Nigeria. direct physical or material benefit to small com- munitieswhichareundertakenmainlyby The growth and activities of the TCC Kumasi university students, although staff may sometimes havebeenwelldocumented(Powell,1975; be involved. They may be extensive projects TcC, AnnualReviews)andtheunithas undertaken as part of an overall national or attracted a good deal of international attention university policy (as in the University of Dar es and support. Significantfeatures for our dis- Salaam)2, in the form of national service under- cussions are thatit involvesall the relevant taken either before or after undergraduate studies faculties of the university, and (perhaps more or in the middle of the course (as at one time in controversially) that it has developed production Ethiopia at what is now the University of Addis units within the university which actually manu- Ababa). Alternatively they may be vacation or facture and market products in order to demon- short-term projects, for instance as part of a stratethat they are commercial propositions, national youth week, which may occur in term hoping that they will then be taken over by a time. The work itself may be directly related to local entrepreneur. the students' course of studies or professional training (e.g., farming activities for those training The unit at If e has a similar purpose, although as agriculturalists, or work in village dispensaries there is a somewhat different emphasis in the by medical students); or it may be unrelated (e.g., work, and much of the external aid has come building a community centre, laying water pipes, from US sources. As in Kumasi, the main con- digging a well). cern is with assisting the development of small There is mutual benefit; the villagers see that industries through appropriate technology (as it students are not afraid to work with their hands, is called in this case) and the resources of the or among ordinary people, and at the same time whole university are available, with many staff receive some material benefit from the project; involved apart from those specifically employed the students learn to keep in touch with life at by the IndustrialResearch and Development the grass-roots, and have the satisfaction of com- Unit (SIDN; 1975). Rather more than at Kumasi pleting a worthwhile piece of work. This is the there is an emphasis on the economics and mana- theory, but in practice many things can go wrong gerial aspects of running a small business, or and much will depend on the attitudes of the industry, and the Unit is involved in a study of a students and villagers towards each other and the large number of entrepreneurial activities of this work they are doing, and on careful planning and kind in and around Ile-Ife, collecting and analys- co-ordination. ing all relevant data to determine whether the concern is likely to be viable. One danger is that the role of the community members may be too passive, in that the students Also in this area of services which extend the simply come and provide something for nothing university's research/consultancy function we can and then retire to their citadel of learning. All include the work of agricultural and medicaif university extension work should be basically health extension. Virtually all agriculture schools developmental which implies a teaching/learning and faculties provide some extension service to function whereby the recipients can learn a new their local communities, even if only as essential skill, and become more self-reliant. There is no field practice for their students. Generally, the reason why work of this kind by students should tendency seems to be for those universities which not have this character, but it demands sensitive have been most influenced by American associ- direction since people in a local community will ations to undertake extension/advisory work for only be prepared to learn from those whose skills local farmers as a university commitment beyond and knowledge they can respect, especially if they the needs of student training. Thus in West are younger than themselves. Africa, Njala University College in Sierra Leone, Research-based consultancy services which is probably the most rural institution of its kind in West Africa, has a vigorous and varied Notable examples of research-based consultancy programme ofextensionactivitiesbasedon several departments of the Faculty of Agriculture, 2 For adetaileddiscussioncftheUniversityof Dar es which has included research and marketing of a Salaam's Conceptof theuniversity'srole insocietysee Court, 1975 and 1976. new baby food (from local benny seed), and 47 health and home economics services.3 The Uni- ambition through acquisition of paper qualifi- versityofNigeriaatNsukka,withstrong cations.