Access, Funding, and Knowledge Production in African Higher Education:
A Historiographical Exploration fro 1960s to 2015

Codesria Project led by Ntimi Mtawa

Project description

This collaborative project involves researchers and scholars from the University of Pretoria, College of Education - Northern Arizona University, and the Human Sciences Research Council.  It is a multi-countries project covering higher-education issues in countries of South, East, and West African regions. It is a 16-months project funded generously by The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (Codesria). 

The research project is premised on the argument that since the 1960s there have been a number of major shifts in African higher education landscape. These shifts continue to manifest in different forms, which shape and influence the trends and patterns of higher education to date. The research focuses on three key components, namely access, funding and knowledge production. To explore these shifts, the project uses the ‘political economy’ as the framing idea. 

Through the political economy framework, the paper engages with:

1. The political economy of access and funding in African higher education; and
2. The political economy and terrain of knowledge production in African higher education.

The project aims to achieve several outcomes. These are

1. contribution to knowledge generation through publications;
2. capacity building through linking doctoral students and post-doctoral fellow to the project;
3. informing policy and practice on African higher education; and
4. stimulating critical debate on the trends and patterns of African higher education and their implications.