Using the high energy of graduation
Bereket Gebru
We are once again at that time of the year, when Universities throughout the country graduate their students. Graduation ceremonies are held in high regard by the Universities as high ranking officials attend them including the Prime Minister. Universities renovate their compounds and clean up their premises upon the arrival of these ceremonies.
Families of graduates also hold graduation ceremonies to celebrate the achievements of their offspring. They spend a considerable amount of money on graduation related activities. The society also takes graduation ceremonies as righteous causes of organizing the festivities. The status granted for graduates is also very prestigious.
However, there is a reason or an expectation associated with the celebration of graduations by Universities, countries and families. Universities and the whole country expect graduates to use their knowledge towards developing the nation. On the other hand, families expect their children to be involved in some line of work and improve their lives, help their fellow citizens and are of use to their country. On a more personal note, graduates feel like they have achieved enough to lead a reasonably good life and become employed.
Failure to fulfill these expectations usually leaves graduates with deflated morale. The social and economic implications of their failures are tremendous. Graduates have a considerable role in designing and implementing development strategies. However, higher education was not always viewed as the fundamental tool for development it is thought to be in contemporary.
There are three fundamentally different positions with respect to higher education’s role in development initiatives. The first could be called ‘Higher education as luxury ancillary”. From this perspective higher education is a sector that every country should have, but it is a ‘luxury sector’ compared, for example, to primary education. This approach is not only supported by international policy agencies, but also by many governments in Africa. Uganda, amongst others, increased the share devoted to primary education in its overall education budget from 52% in 1995 to 68% in 2002, while the concomitant share of higher education decreased from 28% to 16% (Mamdami, 2005). The World Bank itself decreased the proportion of its education budget for higher education from 17% in 1985-89, to 7% by 1995-99.
The second approach acknowledges a role for higher education in national development, but conceptualizes it as ‘A Producer of appropriately skilled professionals and applied knowledge.’ Jeffrey Sachs (2005) in “The End of Poverty” posits financial commitment and the strengthening of vocational and technical training as the key educational drivers for development.
The third position locates higher education as the “Engine of development in the new knowledge economy.” According to this view, the new modes of economic production are increasingly dependent on knowledge and information technology. Knowledge and ‘information have become central to development in the global economy. The availability and use of information and communication technology is a pre-requisite for economic and social development. Econometric studies show the close statistical relationship between diffusion of information technology, productivity, and competitiveness of countries, regions, industries, and firms.
There is increasing evidence that high levels of education in general, and of tertiary education in particular, are essential for the design and productive use of new technologies, while they also provide the foundations for any nation’s innovative capacity. Recent data show that higher education participation in Sub-Saharan Africa remains below 5%, while for many high income countries it is well over 60%.
This type of evidence has led to a number of countries putting higher education at the core of their development strategy. The best known model in a developed country is that of Finland, which, following the deep recession of the early 1990s, selected knowledge, information technology and education as the major cornerstones of the new (economic) development policy13. Ireland, Australia and New Zealand have also followed this route successfully.
The development model of the East Asian countries in the 1970s and 1980s, in particular that of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, and to a lesser extent Malaysia, was a product of the massive investments made in education in general and in higher education in particular. The latter became especially important when some of these countries decided to shift the emphasis in their economic development strategy to high value-added production.
The Chinese and Indian economies which have been displayed unprecedented levels of sustained growth since the early 1990s, on the other hand, exhibit two important characteristics with respect to higher education that sets them apart from both the ‘East Asian tigers’ of the 1980s and from other contemporary developing countries.
First, investment in higher education is seen as a parallel process (and not a consecutive one) to providing broader access to, and improving the quality of, primary and secondary schooling. In other words, they have shown that if poor countries want to participate in the globalized knowledge economy, investments in higher education are crucial, at the same time as improving access and quality of schooling.
The second, related point, illustrated in the development pattern of the Chinese and Indian economies, is that the traditional growth path of domination first of primary sector activities (agriculture and mining) followed by manufacturing and then by services, does not necessarily hold. The speed and extent, to which developing countries are able to absorb, use and modify technology developed in the north, will ensure a more rapid transition to higher levels of development and standards of living.
With the close affinity of tertiary education in development, it is only fitting that Ethiopia has increased the number of its universities by folds. The country needs the energy of graduation to sustain the rapid development it has achieved over the past fifteen years.