Internet may aid Africa Colleges (10)
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Access to the Internet will provide a powerful tool in the short run
for African universities and professionals therein to stay in touch
with developments in other places. In due course, use of the
Internet will become indispensable to all teachers and their
students, whether in the so-called 'developing' or 'developed'
world---no doubt in ways which we have only begun to imagine.
So I would agree that it is best to accept Internet access whenever
possible---but not at the cost of having to give up any autonomy of
intellectual operation to outsiders on the argument that African
universities are outmoded or decrepit or inadequate. To the
contrary, my own experience is that these institutions---like Addis
Ababa University and Makerere, to take only two---are fighting
heroically, in the face of inadequate budgets, to maintain
themselves and thus sustain the needs of their countries and
students. It seems a bit much to suggest they be supplanted by
input from the West, as if they were intellectually inadequate as
well as, simply, poor. My advice to the donors would be to give as
many African (and other region) universities as possible access to
the Internet---and then stand back and see how they run.
But maybe that's why I'm not a Donor....
Regards,
C. Stephen Baldwin
Specialist in Training for Population and Development
The Population Division
UN/DESIPA, DC2-2070
1 UN Plaza
NY, NY 10017 USA
e-mail: baldwins@un.org
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