NN41, December 2008
The New Politics of Partnership: Peril or Promise?
Higher Education and International Capacity Building: 25 Years of the Higher Education Links Programme [1]
By David Stephens, University of Brighton
Email: d.stephens@brighton.ac.ukKeywords
Partnership, British Council, Higher Education Links Programme, HEL
Summary
In 2006 the British Council?s Higher Education Links Programme (HEL) celebrated its 25th anniversary. This article looks at higher education partnership over the past quarter of a century and identifies five lessons that we should learn.
In 2006 the British Council?s Higher Education Links Programme (HEL) celebrated its 25th anniversary. To mark this event it seemed appropriate to produce a book that critically examined the experience of academics and researchers involved in these and other links.
A particular aim of the book was to address the theme of capacity building, through a series of chapters focusing upon different issues and contexts. Some but not all illustrative material drew upon the British Council Higher Education Links archive of case studies. The contributors for each chapter had worked in a particular field (e.g. Education, Human Rights, Conserving the Natural Environment) and have had extensive experience of one or more links.
A little background on the nature of the Links Programme:
In an average year e.g. 2003-04, 384 links were supported in 49 countries. Over 15,000 people were trained or attended dissemination workshops and 500+ modules and courses were developed at overseas higher education institutions. In that year a total of around 1,700 visits took place, facilitating professional and practical skills development as well as enhancing mutual understanding.
These link arrangements were supported, for an average of 3 years, covered a wide range of activities: the up-skilling of staff, the development of new courses, the publication of research or teaching publications, and the organisation of workshops or seminars. The distribution of Link projects was weighted towards partner countries with more HE capacity (and higher per capita income) than is Department for International Development?s (DFID) budget generally. This partnership scheme cost the UK an estimated £10m plus per year. DFID?s £3m per year budget met only a proportion of the costs however. Other costs were met by UK and partner HEIs and the British Council.
Standing back and looking at the landscape of co-operation and partnership over the past quarter of a century, five lessons can be identified:
1. Higher Education Partnerships and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
As with much UN rhetoric, statements dealing with the MDGs fall short in terms of detailed strategic directions Higher Education partnerships should take if the MDGs are to be achieved. It is clear, too, that by focussing upon the achievement of the MDGs, Higher Education institutions will lose much of their autonomy to critique such a focus or to suggest other more nuanced priorities. For example, the MDGs focus much more upon access to schooling rather than issues of quality, with little recognition of the harmful effects of the imposition of Western forms of schooling upon Southern communities. Equally the MDGs say little about the impact of globalisation and privatisation upon the control and delivery of education and health services.
2. Higher Education Partnerships and the furtherance of Democracy
The 1998 UNESCO Higher Education Conference noted the important role Higher Education institutions play in preserving their critical functions in the interests of democracy. Many of the Link programmes reviewed here call for Links to promote good governance and human rights; they expose the tension that exists between the values that lie behind many co-operation programmes and the less than democratic contexts in which Links often have to work.
3. Gender Mainstreaming and Higher Education Partnerships
At issue is the extent to which Link activities, from design through to evaluation, mainstream gender. In terms of Link projects with Southern partners this means that everything from the composition of Link management committees through to Link priorities and activities on the ground. One way forward would be to insist that before a link is approved both Higher Education partners provide evidence that their respective institution has taken steps to address issues of patriarchy within their respective college or university. Easier said than done.
4. Resourcing and sustaining Link Partnerships
All the contributors to this volume provide evidence of the ingenious and creative ways in which funds to support link activities have been acquired and sustained. The increasing role of private capital and the globalisation of the market-place, particularly of higher education opportunities raise questions about the positioning of new Links and Partnerships. Though there is always a case for targeting partnership programmes upon Southern partners (DfID?s 25 focus-countries for example), serious consideration needs to be given to the inequalities in terms of resources that are brought to the Links.
Another question concerns the sustainability of Link activity once the HEL or other such funding ceases. Will a Southern or Northern partner institution earmark funds from its own budget to continue and sustain what has been started? Sustainability is also a matter of the effect link activities have upon broader questions concerning the ?carbon footprint? left behind as a result of academics flying from partner to partner? Is this the time to insist that new Link proposals build in measures such as carbon off-setting and increased use of video-conferencing?
5. Link outcomes and impacts upon Policy
Evidence indicates that Links, particularly the new Development Partnerships in Higher Education (DelPHE) links which are a successor to HEL, be positioned clearly within the framework of DfID?s comprehensive strategy for the host country, with linkages established early on between the host government and its agencies responsible for policy formulation and implementation, on the one hand, and DfID?s and NGO country strategies, on the other. Partnership, in other words needs to be interpreted to embrace both the relationship between Higher Education institutions North and South, and their respective policy masters. Though some would argue that closer links between research outcomes and policy-making bodies will compromise the independence and autonomy of the Academy, there is compelling evidence from the HEL Links Programme that greater attention could have been given to the production and dissemination of the Links findings and outputs to the policy communities.
Footnote
[1] Higher Education and International Capacity Building: 25 years of the Higher Education Links Programme edited by David Stephens is published by Symposium Books as part of its Bristol Papers in Education: comparative and international studies series and is due out in March 2009.
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