The concerns for African children should not be confined to the disadvantaged position of Africa, but rather extended to search into the virtues of their cultural heritage, historical background and values of the African civilisation as the basis for reflecting on the rights and welfare of the child. In other words, the perspectives on the African child are shaped by a multiplicity of factors that include both the worldview of the researchers, donor priorities and pressures, as well as what will ‘sell’ better in peer review journals. This implies a real concern with what is going on in terms of research on child issues in Africa, in order to avoid generalisations and particularising the African children in ways that portray them in an unfavourable light.
Departing from this theoretical and philosophical background, scholars from 13 countries in Africa converged in Dakar to discuss issues related to child research in Africa. This monograph is about this extremely important exercise undertaken by Childwatch International and CODESRIA in collaboration with the Child and Youth Research and Training Programme at the University of the Western Cape, the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town and Kenyatta University.
It comprises three papers that were presented at that occasion as well as the discussion that follows. Recognising the challenges that face researchers and their institutions, and the existing gap between policy makers and researchers, the monograph is an excellent evaluation of the child research potential in Africa. It examines the feasibility of the child research on the continent by exploring ways through which researchers and institutions across Africa can strengthen the quantity and the quality of child research in Africa. An assessment of the available research resources, in particular the technical skills of African researchers, and available financial resources is also part of the analyses.
Maylene Shung King, Rose September, Frederick Moses Okatcha and Carlos Cardoso Codesria 2006New
The National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) and the Growth of the University Sub-sector in Uganda, 2002-2012, narrates the experience of the Ugandan NCHE in the establishment, development and regulation of higher education institutions in Uganda from 2002 to 2012. In this period, student numbers in higher education institutions increased from about 65,000 to some 200,000 and university institutions from about ten to more than triple the number.
The book discusses the role of a regulatory agency in the delivery of higher education, the relations of universities and colleges with such an agency, its impact on developing university capacities, and leadership in creating and refining higher education ideas. The experience of Uganda’s regulatory agency, the NCHE, in those ten years should help both the Ugandan and other African countries’ higher education stakeholders in sharing lessons learned from this one case study. The author sees the roles of regulatory agencies as vital in the initial stages of building a higher education sub-sector and in periods of system transitions such as the current journey from elite to mass systems but is of the view that the university remains the home of knowledge creation, dissemination, and its application in society.
A.B.K. Kasozi is currently Research Associate, Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR). He is the founding Executive Director of Uganda's National Council for Higher Education, which he steered for ten years, from 2002 to 2013. He has taught at Makerere, the University of Khartoum and in North America. He was formerly Vice Rector (Deputy Head) and Professor of History at the Islamic University in Uganda (1995-2002). He is the author of many publications.
ISBN : 978 2 86978 711 7
CODESRIA 2016