…there is a risk in presuming that policy intentions and approved policy decisions at the level of a governing body will become empirical realities without significant modifications at the level of administration where implementation takes place.

LAST WEEK, I examined the view enunciated through the World Bank Report 1995 ‘Higher Education: the Lessons of Experience’, that throughout the world, there is the challenge as to how to reform higher education with a decreased budget.

This is all the more important when a university’s role is not solely economic. The fact of the matter is that in the modern world, there is need for a multifaceted and adaptable university in the modern world to meet the social, political, and economic needs.

In fact, a university could be a change agent for itself internally as well as societally. However, in the context of increasingly decreased budgets and the performance of multifaceted needs, it’s almost mandatory that university institutions diversify their funding sources.

Further, UNESCO, through its ‘Policy Paper for Change and Development in Higher Education’ (1995), mentioned three trends in higher education — quantitative expansion, diversification, and financial constraints. This report noted that relevance, quality, and internationalization should guide the responses of higher education to adapt to these trends in this fast-moving knowledge-based world.

Guided responses are imperative now, in the context of potential decreases in governmental funding.

The World Bank/UNESCO 2000 Report, ‘Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise’, against a background of limited public funding and multifaceted demands on universities, concluded that the following be quickly introduced: Mixed funding sources, efficient use of physical and human capital, better governance, and curriculum development in technology and general education. These will only become empirical realities when universities become adaptable and quickly develop into change agents1.

Manuel Castells (2001) envisaged four key functions of universities. One, universities historically performed their role as ideological apparatuses. Two, universities have always been instruments of selection and socialization for the elite. Three, knowledge-generation, surprisingly, is an inconsequential function, because scientific research gradually has become the exclusive preserve of national specialized institutes. Four, the most important function today is the training of a skilled labour force, creating the ‘professional’ university.

Castells, however, points out that those universities are subject to countervailing forces in fulfilling their responsibilities. On the one hand, universities are subject to influences from the home society, and on the other hand, universities have to grapple with affecting their universal functions. These countervailing forces may create contradictions in universities’ performance of their roles. How well universities manage these contradictory functions is the subject of a report titled, ‘The Role of Universities in the Transformation of Societies: An International Research Project (2004).’

This project was started by the UK Open University’s Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI), and subsequently, in collaboration with the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU).

This week, I want to examine the ideas on change, both within universities and societally. I shall review the findings of this report next week.

The project had 25 researchers and higher education specialists from 15 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa (including South Africa), Central Asia, and Latin America. The study was administered in the following 10 countries: South Africa, Senegal, Belarus, Estonia, Brazil, Nigeria, Bulgaria, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Mexico.

This project aimed to provide empirical evidence on the impact of higher education and the transformations within universities.

DR. CHEDDI Jagan had this to say on the University of Guyana: “I have stressed the function of the University of Guyana to provide the skills and higher education necessary for the economic development of this country, and I have alluded to its role in developing and defining values in our society. But there are two no less important consequences which we hope will flow from the activities of the University. One of these is that every child born in the remotest settlement in the interior, or in the farthest village or sugar estate, should have a real opportunity to reach the highest position of the land. The highest positions in our society must no longer be the preserves of the rich and the well-born. By bringing university education within the reach of everyone, we have laid the foundation for the establishment of democracy in this country.”

This statement shows that Dr. Jagan firmly believed that a university is inextricably linked with national development, and that access to higher education should be available to all.

The University of Guyana commenced classes on October 2, 1963. Harold Drayton, in a paper published by the University of Guyana Guild of Graduates Ontario, provided the following admissions statistics:

In the months leading up to classes, 680 candidates applied for admission to the first year classes, 263 were interviewed, and 179 students selected. Among the admitted students, 149 were males and 30 females, with 102 from Georgetown, and 77 from the rural areas.

A further breakdown showed that 81 of these 179 students were civil servants, 54 primary and high school teachers, and 44 unclassified. Seven full-time and four part-time academic staff serviced the first-year classes.

These numbers symbolise the birth of higher education created by a colonial people.

Dr. Jagan worked tirelessly to establish this university, a spectacular feat.

Once Cabinet approved the proposal for the establishment of a university on December 6, 1961, Jagan rolled out intensive communications with academics abroad to assist him in this needed project.

1 The World Bank/ UNESCO March 2000 Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise, Washington DC