Message-ID: <KF16+utPdlA@ssc.msu.edu> Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 09:36:50 EDT From: Don Osbor <mailto:don.osborn@SSC.MSU.EDU> Subject: "African Univ." near Dakar To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
The following item may be of interest.
DZO mailto:osborndo@pilot.msu.edu don.osborn@ssc.msu.edu
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Forwarded message:
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 20:51:27 -0400
From: mailto:93083906@callisto.si.usherb.ca (Sibiry Traore)
To: mailto:malinet@troll.mit.edu
Subject: Universite africaine ÿ
[cover note deleted]
African University In Pipeline
>From Peter Masebu; PANA Staff Correspondent
DAKAR, Senegal (PANA) - The foundation stone and monument of the future
African university will be laid Friday at Sebikotane, 35 kilometers
south-east of Dakar, the Senegalese capital.
The proposed bilingual (English and French) institution is to be erected on
the location of the former William Ponty School, which produced eminent
West African scholars, including the late Ivorian President Felix
Houphouet-Boigny.
The foundation stone laying ceremony was among the highlights of an
international conference of African intellectuals and scholars which
entered its third day in Dakar Thursday.
The intellectuals are trying to shape Africa's position in the 21st century
on various crucial aspects, including integration, so as to be competetive
in the emerging global economy.
Asked to explain the mechanisms of setting up the the African university,
Mamadou Diouf, a history professor at Dakar's Cheikh Anta Diop university,
said initially sections of Senegalese academic institutions would be
reshaped and upgraded to play a regional role.
The university, which will have branches in several parts of Africa, would
admit the best working graduate students from all over Africa, he said.
The students would be given top-notch training as a way of building and
maintaining their capacities.
Diouf said the teaching body of the proposed institution would be
constituted by non-permanent staff.
"Instead, high-calibre lecturers would be engaged on short contracts," he
said.
The proposed institution would be structured along the lines of the
University of West Indies, which has campuses in Jamaica, Barbados, and
Trinidad and Tobago. It would be funded by states and institutions which
send students on a cost-sharing basis.
"This will enable African governments and institutions to cut costs instead
of having to send their students for higher training abroad," said Diouf.
Asked whether the university would not face funding problems like a host of
many other African institutions, Diouf said: "We need to have funds for at
least 20 years before launching it."
He said before the institution takes off, there must be a foundation
catering for the pure and social sciences, to avoid falling into what he
termed as the "donors syndrome."
He said Africans are capable of raising the required funds "provided the
institution is removed from partisan politics and that's why there must be
no permanent staff."
However, Diouf could not state exactly when the university would take
off. "We really need to make proper planning to avoid false starts," he
added.
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