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Kenyatta University Graduation Ceremony 10 December 2010 Speech by Guest Speaker The Role of Universities in the Development of Africa Prof Goolam Mohamedbhai
Former Secretary-General, Association of African Universities Former President, International Association of Universities Former Vice-Chancellor, University of Mauritius

I wish first of all to express my sincere gratitude to the Vice-Chancellor of Kenyatta University for inviting me to speak at this Graduation Ceremony. I feel deeply honoured. I feel particularly privileged as, after Mauritius, I consider Kenya as my second home country. My parents and my wife were born and brought up in this country. We have traced at least five generations of our ancestors in Kenya, and they originally travelled in dhows from Gujarat in India to Lamu in Kenya, very likely in the early 19th century. To all those students graduating today, let me say that this is an important milestone in your professional life. But let me ask you a question. What do you think is the purpose of your degree, what have you achieved by spending 3 or 4 years at Kenyatta University? I ask this question because it is now unquestionable that higher education plays a major role in the economic, social, human and political development of a country and you should be aware of this. Yet, barely a couple of decades ago, some funding agencies to developing countries were working on the premise that it is basic education that is more important and should be funded, not higher education. It took some time for them to be convinced that there cannot be good basic education without higher education. Higher education is important first of all because it produces the human capital essential for development doctors, engineers, scientists, economists, accountants, teachers. There is clear evidence that the state of development of any country is almost directly related to its human capital. And Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, fares very badly. One useful indicator of human capital development is the ratio of students enrolled in tertiary education expressed as a proportion of the population of tertiary education age. That enrolment ratio for Sub-Saharan Africa is currently no more than 6%, when the corresponding world average figure is about 26%. Africa must therefore continue to expand its higher education sector and it has done so significantly over the past decades. But what is crucial is that its higher education provision must be relevant to the countrys development needs. Unemployment of graduates is a major issue in Africa. The real development needs for Africa are in the rural areas, yet few graduates are trained for or opt for working in those areas. There is a crying need in rural areas for appropriate housing using locally available materials, for energy production from renewable

sources, for good water supply, for health care, for good education, for food security, and one could go on. But one finds few dedicated professional graduates helping to resolve the rural development challenges. Many, if not most, of you come from rural areas and you should make it your duty to first serve those areas. Besides being relevant, higher education in Africa must be of quality. As a result of gross under-funding over the past couple of decades, and because of the pressure to increase enrolment well beyond capacity, quality in most African higher education institutions had deteriorated significantly. But major revitalisation efforts, led by the African Union and UNESCO, are now under way and we are already witnessing positive results, including at this very campus. It must be ensured that every university in Africa satisfies the Quality Assurance requirements in the country, that the university is doing what it has set out to do according to its stated mission and that its activities are in line with the requirements of the community and the country where it is located. Achieving quality, however, does not mean that the university must be globally ranked. In my view, using existing global university rankings as a measure of quality of universities in developing countries is not only fallacious but also perilous. Universities in developing countries are being unwittingly dragged into a game where the rules, inappropriate for them, are set by others, and everyone knows from the start that they will be losers. Universities in Africa do not have to play that game. Their mission should be to produce the appropriate manpower required for Africas development, to undertake research that is of direct relevance to Africa and to reach out to assist their communities in the many challenges they are facing, especially poverty reduction. None of these fit the heavily research-biased criteria used for global ranking. African universities have a duty to serve their countries and region first before being global. It is unfortunate that many African governments, blinded by the prestige of global ranking, are challenging their universities to be globally ranked without understanding what that means and the consequences of the grossly inappropriate use of resources that that would entail. Not all universities in the world can have the same mission. Priorities are different in different countries, and universities must not be forced to conform to a single model of a so-called world-class university. Let me raise another issue with regard to human capital formation by African universities, especially as Kenyatta University is graduating its first cohort of medical students; that is brain drain. The figures, even if they are approximate and not entirely reliable, give a bleak picture. Every year about 20,000 highly qualified professionals, mostly doctors, nurses, teachers and engineers, the very people Africa needs for its development and in whom African countries have invested heavily, migrate from Africa to the north. The situation in health and medical services is particularly alarming. Sub-Saharan Africa has only 13 physicians per 100,000 population, compared to 164 in the UK and 279 in the USA. Being faced with major health challenges, Africa cannot afford to lose its doctors and nurses to the north. You who are graduating in medicine today must assume your moral responsibility and pledge to serve your country.

African countries are facing huge challenges in a number of fields, including climate change, food security, diseases, transport, energy and water supply. They need to come up with innovative approaches that are appropriate to Africa, taking the specificity of each country into account. This is where African universities have an important role to play. Governments are known to have a preference for appointing foreign consultants for getting advice. There is no reason why they should not approach their universities first. Universities have an enormous pool of expertise in a variety of fields, and if necessary they can easily turn to academics in other countries for help and assistance. Above all, universities are known and respected for their impartial, non-political views and advice. National universities can in fact become think tanks for their respective countries. For this to happen, however, there needs to be a pact between universities and governments, as well as mutual trust and respect. Allow me now to congratulate all those students who are graduating today, and I extend my felicitations to their parents and family, to their lecturers and professors. I wish you all plenty of success in your future careers. But remember that life is not always made up of successes you will find hurdles coming your way. And you may have to face failures. Failure can in fact be the pillar of success. Let me illustrate the point by giving you two examples. First, when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he tried over 2,000 experiments before he got it to work. When asked how it felt to have failed so many times, he said, "But I never failed even once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be the 2,000th step process." Second, a small boy from a poor family earned his living by selling newspapers in a small village in India. He was not exceptionally smart at school but was fascinated by rockets. Later in life, the first rocket he built crashed. A missile that he built also crashed multiple times and he was ridiculed. But he persevered and succeeded in becoming the famous scientist who developed Indias ballistic missile and rocket technology. That person is Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the former President of India, You, my friends, are going to be among the next generation of leaders of Kenya and that puts an enormous responsibility on you. Whether you are in business or you exercise a profession, whether you work in the public or private sector, whether you are in Kenya or in another country, I hope you will always uphold the principles that guide higher education worldwide, and these are: search for truth through learning, service to society, belief in freedom of expression, promotion of excellence, respect for differences of opinion and acceptance of diversity. I have no doubt that Kenyatta University has well-equipped you to uphold those principles. Over the past years I have had the opportunity to witness the development of this University, and I must say I am deeply impressed by the dynamic approach that the University is adopting in achieving its objectives through a process of revitalisation and expansion. I believe Kenyatta University can be an example to many universities in Africa.

My heartiest congratulations to the University on the occasion of its 25th anniversary. May the University continue to thrive in all its academic endeavours and may it become an important beacon of light for the future development of Kenya. Asante Sana. __________________________________________________________________________