NN41, December 2008
The New Politics of Partnership: Peril or Promise?
Triangular Africa-Asia University Partnerships via Japan
By Norihiro Kuroda and Nobuhide Sawamura, CICE, Hiroshima University
Email: kuroda@hiroshima-u.ac.jpEmail: nsawamur@hiroshima-u.ac.jp
Keywords
University Partnership, Japan, Africa, Asia
Summary
This article provides a case study of a university partnership approach, the Africa-Asia University Dialogue for Basic Education Development, which appears to have been quite successful.
[Editor?s note: see also the article by Fatuma Chege, this issue, which includes discussion on the Africa-Asia University Dialogue for Basic Education Development]
The Africa-Asia University Dialogue for Basic Education Development (A-A Dialogue) project is a joint research endeavor by African and Asian universities to contribute to achieving the international commitment to EFA. This project was implemented between 2004 and 2007 in cooperation with UNESCO, UNU and JICA with the Center for the Study of International Cooperation in Education (CICE), Hiroshima University functioning as the secretariat. As to the activities organized under this project, there were three components: (1) Study mission to Asia for African university-based education experts with officials from the central education administration; (2) national-level research in African countries; and, (3) Reflective dialogue meetings.
This project was based on the critical view about universities that while international educational cooperation has long been focused on basic education, universities, particularly those in Africa, seem to have had a limited say in the development of the education sector in general and basic education in particular. The basic idea of the project therefore was that by being the apex of research and knowledge, universities should play a crucial role in influencing change and development of basic education through identifying the really important issues in EFA and researching them, thus becoming able to suggest possible solutions.
This project also reflected the philosophy of NEPAD, which emphasizes a more self-reliant approach and effort by and for African countries. Making self-help efforts is also widely embedded in Japanese culture. In the context of this project, the self-reliant approach means on the one hand, the project was expected to provide useful research results so that African countries can take a self-reliant approach to tackle challenges in education, while on the other hand it was intended that African universities would take initiative in designing and implementing their research, as well as in analyzing and reporting the results. In other words, research themes should be identified by the local researchers of the country where educational challenges exist, and the research itself should be conducted by them. Unlike many cases that have occurred with African universities, this is neither research commissioned by international organizations or aid donors nor is it research assistance for Northern researchers.
Another important feature of this project is dialogue between African and Asian universities. This was meant to promote experience-sharing and peer-learning between them. It was expected that Asian experiences in basic education development and the role played by universities in it might be useful for Africa particularly in terms of a self-reliant approach.
A number of papers have also been produced by African, Asian and Japanese collaborative teams. Many of the research topics dealt with quality of education. Nevertheless there are several things which we should take into consideration for further improvement and development. Some of our reflections and comments on the project implementation include: (1) relatively low involvement of Japanese/Asian universities in doing research in Africa; (2) funding mechanism in supporting individual research, and (3) setting common research topics and doing comparative studies.
We do hope that the research findings reflect the real issues and challenges that basic education in Africa is faced with. The collaborative research we are carrying out will be an initial attempt towards more positive contribution by African universities towards basic education development. Building this triangular partnership is not straightforward; indeed it is very challenging for Japan?s international cooperation. But on the basis of the four-year project implementation, we are now making progress towards the second phase starting in 2009.
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