Local Universities should be held accountable for State support

This past week, the Carnegie Corporation hosted a meeting of African higher education experts in Nairobi to deliberate on how best to transformation African higher education.

A recurring theme during the conference was why, despite more than 50 years of existence and infusion of many resources by Government, little progress seems to have been made.  For example, both the old and new institutions have suffered staff shortages, having to share the few available qualified academics as graduate training has lagged behind the rate of expansion. New universities have also become bastions of tribalism as staff recruitment (and in some cases student admissions) have become too localised. Merit has suffered with institutional managers having to promote the few available academics to merely fill the slots or have professors in their ranks.