SYNTHESIS REPORT
Academic Freedom, Democracy and Sustainable Development in Africa: Re-envisioning the Role of the University
Dar es Salaam (7th–9th November 2023) and Maputo (15th–17th
April 2024)
Department
of Political Science and Public Administration University of
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
PART
I: SETTING THE CONTEXT
Introduction and Background
From 7–9 November 2023 and from
15–17 April 2024, the Council for the Development of Social
Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) held two colloquiums on
academic freedom in Dar es Salaam and Maputo respectively.1
They were organised in collaboration with the University of Dar es
Salaam (UDSM), which hosted the colloquium in Tanzania, and
Eduardo Mondlane University, which hosted the colloquium in
Mozambique. The choice of UDSM as the starting point of a series
of colloquiums was based on its rich tradition in critical
scholarship, which gave rise to the Dar es Salaam School in the
1970s. More importantly, it was in the city of Dar es Salaam that
the historic Dar es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom and
Academic Responsibility was adopted, on 19 April 1990. The
colloquiums brought together a wide range of stakeholders to
deliberate on the status of academic freedom, democracy and
sustainable development in Africa. Participants included
academics, publishers, members of civil society and civil society
organisations, artists and representatives of student bodies. The
reason for hosting these diverse groups of participants was
perhaps best summed up by one participant—Simbarashe Gukurume, in
Maputo—who asserted that academic freedom was too important to be
left solely in the hands of academics and deans.
As a subset of democracy, academic
freedom has been one of the issues at the top of CODESRIA’s agenda
for decades. Godwin Murunga, CODESRIA’s Executive Secretary,
revealed in his opening remarks in Maputo that the colloquiums
were a result of attempts to link the struggles of the masses with
academic freedom. The colloquiums come at a time when there is a
shared concern about the state of academic freedom and democracy.
In the Dar es Salaam colloquium, Baruani Mshale spoke about a
confluence of crises that warrant thorough investigation by
intellectuals as a way of fulfilling their responsibility. These
crises are democratic backsliding, economic volatility, rapid
population growth, social fragmentation and inequalities,
technological advancement and its associated risks, health
pandemics and environmental/climate change challenges.
Evidently, global democratic back-sliding has become the reality of the time. In Africa, even small gains made during the so-called ‘Third Wave of Democratisation’ are rapidly being eroded. In addition, African economies have not lived up to the expectations of the ‘Africa Rising’ narrative of the 2000s, which prompts serious questions on the state of development. Moreover, Africa today has the world’s youngest population, in the midst of unemployment and inequalities. Besides, with poor to zero health infrastructure, the continent remains vulnerable to health pandemics and other diseases. In the meantime, Africa is shouldering the burden of climate change with little to no safety net, even when its contribution to the destruction of the environment remains very low compared with the industrialised countries of the global North.
For many in the African academic community, the democratic back-sliding has created a déjà vu moment. It invokes memories of the poor state of academic freedom and democracy in the 1990s. The return of military rule in the countries of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Guinea gives rise to serious questions about democracy and development in those countries and on the continent as a whole. In countries with civilian governments, the promise of democracy coexists with harsh authoritarian tendencies that curtail freedoms and human dignity. On the receiving end of these developments are ordinary citizens. Equally, the academic community has not been spared, and therefore there is a need to revisit the role of the university in the struggles for various kinds of freedoms, including intellectual freedom.
This report takes stock of the proceedings of the two colloquiums, synthesising and analysing the key issues that were discussed. It is divided into four parts:
Evidently, global democratic back-sliding has become the reality of the time. In Africa, even small gains made during the so-called ‘Third Wave of Democratisation’ are rapidly being eroded. In addition, African economies have not lived up to the expectations of the ‘Africa Rising’ narrative of the 2000s, which prompts serious questions on the state of development. Moreover, Africa today has the world’s youngest population, in the midst of unemployment and inequalities. Besides, with poor to zero health infrastructure, the continent remains vulnerable to health pandemics and other diseases. In the meantime, Africa is shouldering the burden of climate change with little to no safety net, even when its contribution to the destruction of the environment remains very low compared with the industrialised countries of the global North.
For many in the African academic community, the democratic back-sliding has created a déjà vu moment. It invokes memories of the poor state of academic freedom and democracy in the 1990s. The return of military rule in the countries of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Guinea gives rise to serious questions about democracy and development in those countries and on the continent as a whole. In countries with civilian governments, the promise of democracy coexists with harsh authoritarian tendencies that curtail freedoms and human dignity. On the receiving end of these developments are ordinary citizens. Equally, the academic community has not been spared, and therefore there is a need to revisit the role of the university in the struggles for various kinds of freedoms, including intellectual freedom.
This report takes stock of the proceedings of the two colloquiums, synthesising and analysing the key issues that were discussed. It is divided into four parts:
• Part I
sets the context of the two colloquiums and introduces the main
theme—academic freedom.
• Part II is dedicated to discussing the key issues that were brought up by participants in both colloquiums.
• Part III takes a look at some of the most used methods to undermine academic freedom in Africa.
• Part IV concludes by offering a way forward and highlighting aspects of the discussion that CODESRIA’s Secretariat will take up.
• Part II is dedicated to discussing the key issues that were brought up by participants in both colloquiums.
• Part III takes a look at some of the most used methods to undermine academic freedom in Africa.
• Part IV concludes by offering a way forward and highlighting aspects of the discussion that CODESRIA’s Secretariat will take up.
The State of Academic Freedom
in Africa
Globally, studies show that
academic freedom is on the decline. A 2023 report by Scholars at
Risk revealed that:
Joe Oloka-Onyango noted in his keynote addresses both in Dar es
Salaam and Maputo that scholars across the African continent have
suffered state-invoked attacks, in countries such as the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Guinea, Lesotho, Sudan and Nigeria. Intellectuals in those
countries have faced arbitrary arrest and imprisonment,
restrictions placed on their free movement, and a panoply of legal
and extralegal measures that affect their academic freedom. In the
wake of the Tigray uprising in Ethiopia, academics and
universities were targeted by government forces as well as the
fighters of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). A little
over a decade ago, in 2013, the Ahmad Baba library in Timbuktu was
torched by militants. During our discussion in Maputo, student
representative Non-tethelelo Nkambule claimed that she had been
arrested many times for taking part in protests and has spent more
time in police stations than the time she had visited her
grandmother’s place. All this casts a very gloomy picture of the
state of academic freedom in the region.
Around the world, scholars and
university students face frequent and pervasive attacks on their
academic freedom and the autonomy of the institutions where they
work. They occur in closed, authoritarian societies, where
dissent is viewed as destabilising and the right to think and
speak freely is routinely oppressed; and in situations of armed
conflict and political crisis, where particular forms of higher
education may come under attack. They are also becoming
troublingly common in open, democratic, stable societies, where
illiberal actors are using the language of rights, freedom, and
excellence to push forward their own agendas and erode academic
freedom and the autonomy of higher education institutions.2
It has been argued that the golden
era of academic freedom, when higher learning institutions were
allowed to conduct their affairs with relative autonomy, took
place between the 1960s and 1970s.3
Several African universities stood out in the exercise of academic
freedom at a time when the postcolonial state was still
authoritarian. These higher learning institutions included the
University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the University of Nairobi
in Kenya, Makerere University in Uganda, the University of Ghana
and the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. The honeymoon did not
last long, for the 1980s and 1990s saw increasing state
interference. The irony of this is that, compared to the 1960s and
1970s, the African state has become more democratic—at least
through the lens of certain indicators like periodic elections—yet
academic freedom is deteriorating. This is one of the challenges
participants in the two colloquiums wrestled with. It begs the
question whether the problem lies with the agents (academics) or
the structure (state), as conceived by Bakari Mohamed in Dar es
Salaam. In the former, we could ask whether the academic community
has done enough to nurture academic freedom; in the latter we
could ask whether the state is the obstacle to academic freedom.
Traditionally, the university has
been a place where ideas are born, debated and cherished. Further,
the university is considered a safe space where academics and
intellectuals may learn. Yet, this has not been the case, even in
the universities mentioned earlier as the hot-bed of critical
intellectual engagement. Today, African universities face threats
from multiple fronts. Against the notion that it is the state that
poses significant threat to the ideals and principles of the
university, it has come to light that the enemies of academic
freedom range from the state to culture and customs, university
staff and members of academia themselves, industries/the market,
as well as outside forces such as external funding agencies. This
was made clear in the discussions in Dar es Salaam and Maputo.
In arguing about academic
freedom’s enemy from within, Godwin Murunga in Dar es Salaam
observed that it is the threat from the academic community that is
more challenging. In this case, the perpetrators of suppressing
academic freedom are themselves academics, meaning that they are
more nuanced, if not more sophisticated, in their practices.
Murunga’s assessment of the situation was echoed by Issa Shivji,
who reminded participants that his generation fought successfully
for universities to be led by academics, at least at the UDSM. But
many decades later, academics have turned out to be worse
university managers than non-academic administrators in running
higher learning institutions. Things are little different when the
enemy is outside, as is the state. Only, the state is more visible
and its threats are more direct and predictable.
The onslaught on academic freedom
has resulted in the deteriorating quality of education, with the
university reduced to an institution for producing ‘mechanical’
graduates intended to serve market forces instead of thinkers.
Campus activism has now been transformed into collective docility.
Academic members of staff and students alike are increasingly
becoming apathetic towards anything academic. To demonstrate this,
Issa Shivji noted the absence of the UDSM management in the three
days of the colloquium in Dar es Salaam. At UDSM, the famous
‘Revolution Square’ where students used to gather to agitate is
now the site of a flower garden. Pointing to the death of student
activism, participants were informed that the last student protest
against egregious abuses at UDSM took place in 2011. The
University of Dar es Salaam Academic Staff Assembly (UDASA), once
a force to reckon with on matters of social justice and democracy
in the country and region, is now a shadow of its former self.
This is a trend also in other African countries. Intellectuals who
raise their voice at times pay a heavy price. Some, as in the case
of Professor Gilles Cistac of Mozambique, have paid the ultimate
price of losing their lives.4 It
is in this context that the colloquiums aim to re-envision the
role of the university in an attempt to reverse the trend.
Revisiting the Dar and Kampala Declarations
Revisiting the Dar and Kampala Declarations
In his keynote addresses in Dar es
Salaam and Maputo, Joe Oloka-Onyango conducted an extensive review
of the Dar and Kampala declarations. We present an analysis of his
address in the following three sections.5
Context
In April 1990, the Tanzanian
academic community convened and issued the Dar es Salaam
Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility of
Academics (referred to has the Dar Declaration in this report). A
few months later, on 29 November, another declaration was
issued—the Kampala Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social
Responsibility (referred to as the Kampala Declaration in this
report). The latter was organised by CODESRIA under the emerging
framework of an Academic Freedom Programme. This development did
not take place in a vacuum. The economic and political conditions
of the late 1980s and early 1990s created an impetus for the
academic community, especially in East Africa, to respond in
defence of academic freedom and democracy. Joe Oloka-Onyango
pointed out that this period was characterised by major local and
international uncertainties.
Globally, a major shift in power
configuration was taking place, marked by the collapse of the
Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall. African countries,
and indeed much of the global South, were strong-armed into
accepting Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as a way of
stabilising their crumbling economies. This development had a
far-reaching impact in Africa’s economic and political landscapes.
In academia, it manifested in the form of staff retrenchments and
cost-sharing policies that saw higher education become
commercialised. In the political landscape, the struggle for
democracy was gaining momentum and the wave of political pluralism
was sweeping across the continent. In response, in many cases,
African states resorted to authoritarianism by curtailing civil
and political liberties. Subsequent privatisation and
liberalisation reduced the role of the state, and coupled with the
economic hardship of the time this exacerbated conditions of
impoverishment and the marginalisation of the masses. The
introduction of cost-sharing policies in the education sector
meant that access to education depended on one’s income. This was
one of the key issues that the two declarations attempted to
address. They were therefore instruments of democracy and social
justice beyond the university.
Content and Significance
Content and Significance
The two declarations drew
inspiration from various international instruments, such as the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International
Covenants (1966) and the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination
in Education, and the African Charteron Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The Dar Declaration explicitly mentions these instruments.
Although the Kampala Declaration mentions only the African Charter
on Human and People’s Rights, it does refer to other
‘international and regional instruments’. These other
international instruments include the Universal Declaration of the
Rights of Peoples, also known as the Algiers Declaration (1976),
and the Lima Declaration on Academic Freedom and Autonomy of
Institutions of Higher Learning (1988). The Algiers Declaration
seems to have inspired the Dar and Kampala declarations for the
reason that it is more people-centred and less statist.
The Dar Declaration adopted the
Lima Declaration on Academic Freedom in its definition of academic
freedom as ‘The freedom of members of academic community,
individually or collectively, in pursuit, development and
transmission of knowledge through research, study, discussion,
documentation, production, creation, teaching, lecturing and
writing.’ This definition is consistent with UNESCO’s definition
of academic freedom as:
… the right, without constriction
by prescribed doctrine, to freedom of teaching and discussion,
freedom in carrying out research and disseminating and
publishing the results thereof, freedom to express freely their
opinion about the institution or system in which they work,
freedom from institutional censorship and freedom to participate
in professional or representative academic bodies.6
Both declarations comprehensively articulate the right to academic
freedom as a subcategory of human rights. They not only view
education as a tool of human emancipation, but acknowledge that
the struggle for academic freedom is essentially the struggle for
social justice, on university campuses and in the entire society.
It is for this reason that participants in the Dar es Salaam
colloquium expressed solidarity with the victims of the war in
Gaza where universities have been targeted by Israel’s bombs.The declarations further state
clearly the obligations of the state in creating the conditions
for academic freedom. The Dar Declaration was essentially local
and signatories were all Tanzanian public higher learning
institutions, namely Ardhi Institute Staff Assembly (ARISA),
Cooperative College Staff Association (COCOSA), Institute of
Development Management Staff Association (IDMASA), Institute of
Finance Management Staff Assembly (IFMASA), Sokoine University of
Agriculture Staff Association (SUASA), and the University of Dar
es Salaam Staff Assembly (UDASA). In contrast, the Kampala
Declaration is more Pan-African, speaking to the wider African
academic community. It could be argued that it is conceptually
broader in referring to ‘intellectual freedom’ rather than just
academic freedom, which is confined to higher learning
institutions. Similarly, signatories of the Kampala Declaration
came from diverse backgrounds, consisting of state and non-state
actors, including trade unionists, the African diaspora and
beyond.
The two declarations laid down the
foundation of academic freedom in Africa by adding African
perspectives to the struggle. Today, as Oloka-Onyango informed the
colloquium participants, twenty-one African countries have
incorporated academic freedom in their Constitution. Thus, the
declarations have had a jurisprudential impact in the African
human rights framework. Despite these strengths, the declarations
have their limitations, including, first, issues of gender
identity and sexual orientation, which are not given deserved
weight. Second, the Dar school was influenced by experiences in
public higher learning institutions. At the time, the higher
learning space was essentially a public sphere. Today, Tanzania
has many private higher learning institutions, the conditions at
which are not the same as in the public realm. This very fact
presents the need to revisit the declaration and contextualise it
to the current situation. Third, the two declarations focus a
little too much on academic staff and less on students’ academic
freedom. Fourth, and perhaps most important, the declarations lack
a solid action plan for follow-up, reportage and implementation.
As a result, the status of implementation of the items of the
declarations is unknown for the most part.
Relevance
For more than three decades the
Dar and Kampala declarations have served as reference points for
what academic freedom is and what is expected of an academic.
However, during the two colloquiums in Dar es Salaam and Maputo,
two issues became apparent. One was the fact that, despite
their three decades of existence, the two documents remain obscure
to many academics. Indeed, many younger participants admitted to
having neither read nor heard about them. Mshai Mwangola informed
participants in Dar es Salaam that she has been teaching students
from many parts of Africa and none has ever heard about the two
declarations. The older participants, on the other hand, appear to
be familiar with the two documents. This points to a generational
gap that needs bridging.
While this reality is suggestive
of the poor state of academic freedom in African universities, it
also brings us to the second issue, regarding the critical
aspect of the relevance of the two documents. Have they outlived
their relevance? To what extent do social, economic, political and
technological trends since the turn of the new millennium compel
us to revisit the two documents and, if need be, redefine academic
freedom? This view was shared by Kwadwo Appiagyei-Afua at the
Maputo meeting. These and many related questions remain pertinent
to the discussion on academic freedom.
Apart from the declarations’ lack
of focus on gender and sexuality, they prompt serious questions
around science and technology and their effect on academic
freedom, whether positive or negative. The rise of the digital
space and associated technologies such as Artificial Intelligence
must have a significant bearing on academic freedom. In an attempt
to respond to these points, Kwadwo Appiagyei-Afua argued in 2015
that there is a need for an African Charter on Academic Freedom
because the impetus that emanated from the Kampala and Dar
declarations, towards protecting academic freedom, has dissipated
and the historical circumstances that gave birth to the
declarations have changed dramatically.7
This position was contested by Oloka-Onyango on the basis that the
process is more statist. It will involve governments, which more
often than not do not have any interest in the matter. Instead, he
advocated for upholding Article 46 of the Kampala Declaration,
which stipulates that ‘It is incumbent on the African intellectual
community to form its own organisations to monitor and publicise
violations of the rights and freedoms stipulated therein’.
PART II: KEY ISSUES
Capitalism/Neoliberalism, Human
Rights and Academic Freedom
Considering that academic freedom
is a subcategory of human rights, there was keen interest among
the colloquium participants to discuss this topic. Overall, a
cultural-relativist view on human rights prevailed in Dar es
Salaam and Maputo. Definitions offered by international human
rights instruments such as the UDHR did not seem to give the best
explanation of what human rights entail. Questions such as what
human rights is and who defines them repeatedly came up. In Dar es
Salaam, Hamud Majamba urged participants to think about who sets
the human rights agenda and wondered if Africa has its own human
rights agenda. To illustrate his point, Majamba referred to the
World Bank’s Higher Education for Economic Transformation (HEET)
project, the implementation of which requires that UDSM conducts a
curriculum review to make it more inclusive of sex, gender,
sexuality and disability, to mention just a few aspects.
Regardless of the merit of the demand, the question then is to
what extent does the World Bank’s agenda align with UDSM’s agenda
on such issues? Did UDSM have to wait for the World Bank to review
its curriculum? If not, why was the review not done before the
Bank’s intervention?
Interestingly, many participants
cited homosexuality when discussing human rights relativism. This
is not surprising because the position shared by many in Africa is
that homosexuality is un-African. A shared view prevails in
Africa, that homosexuality is a Western agenda. In Dar es Salaam,
this author cautioned that the tendency to refer to human rights
as Western values risked crediting the West for what are otherwise
universal values. This is unacceptable and should be discouraged.
Many human rights for which the West is credited are still
contested in Western societies. Human rights sceptics in Africa
rightly may question the role played by Western-funded NGOs but
not the values themselves, most of which have a universal
character. For instance, criticism can be levelled against the
West’s human rights regime that focuses on civil and political
liberties instead of social and economic rights. However, that
should not mean Africans do not deserve civil and political
rights. It is important to note that the tendency to dismiss human
rights as Western and that they have no place in so-called African
culture has been used by governments to trample on fundamental
freedoms of African people.
One of the central themes in the
discussion about human rights was the debate about
capitalism/neoliberalism. Some doubted the role of capitalism in
building a democratic society. It was posited that the effect of
capitalism is such that the leaders we elect are not our rulers.
This argument was put forward by Willy Mutunga in Dar es Salaam,
that it is the people behind our leaders—the capitalists—who are
our actual rulers. In this regard capitalism is therefore the
antithesis of democracy. By extension, capitalism is antithetical
to the development of Africa. This was once a widely accepted
position in the postcolonial state in many African countries. It
partly explains why many African states adopted socialism, solely
for the reason that capitalism could not be a viable alternative.
In Dar es Salaam, Adebayo Olu-
koshi comprehensively discussed neoliberalism and human rights in
his keynote address. We discuss neoliberalism here as an
ideological tool of capitalism while being mindful of the
conceptual difference between the two. Capitalism and
neoliberalism are at times used interchangeably. According to
Olukoshi, neoliberalism is perhaps the most destructive ideology
in the history of humankind. In relation to human rights, he
centred his argument on how neoliberalism has worsened the social
and economic rights of Africans. In particular, he criticised the
SAPs for rolling back the role of the state and consequently
exposing the African masses to the brutal forces of the market. As
a result, basic social services like health and education were
commodified—further preventing the poor from access to such
services. Olukoshi also criticised neoliberalism for its false
democratic promises, arguing that what was cited as the
‘democratisation process’ in the late 1980s and throughout the
1990s was ‘democracy in form’ and not ‘democracy in substance’.
This is underscored by the fact that the implementation of the
neoliberal agenda has gone hand in hand with the state’s attack on
trade unions, social movements and citizenry.
The Dar es Salaam meeting included
a book launch that was framed under the theme of neoliberalism and
human rights. The book in question was the second edition of Issa
Shivji’s The Concept of Human Rights in Africa, originally
published by CODESRIA in 1989 and republished by CODESRIA just
before the Dar meeting. In his presentation, Shijvi stated that
neoliberalism has killed the idea of society, citing Margaret
Thatcher’s infamous assertion that there is no society, only
individuals. Neoliberal individualism is therefore different from
individualism as conceived during the Enlightenment, in that it is
extreme and hedonistic. Today, according to Shijvi, we cannot even
talk about double-standards of human rights because there are no
standards to begin with. He referred to the situation in Gaza,
where so-called human rights champions have turned a blind eye to
the atrocities. Shivji criticised the silence of the UDSM academic
community with regard to Gaza. He further explained how the spirit
of the Dar es Salaam School ended with the introduction of
neoliberalism. For his part, Godwin Murunga condemned the tendency
under neoliberalism to give human rights an exotic status,
assigning Western-funded NGOs the role of teaching Africans about
them. The wrongly accepted assumption is that Africans are
ignorant of their rights and therefore should be taught about
them.
Furthermore, one of the most
pertinent characteristics of neoliberalism when it comes to human
rights is its divisive nature. Premised on individualism,
neoliberalism also manifests in the form of parochialism, creating
narrow identities and separating them from the collective. In
academia, solidarity along specialisations and separate
departments has eroded the collective whole of the academic
community. Likewise, students and academics no longer see
themselves as a collective. In Dar es Salaam, Issa Shivji lamented
the lack of the staff-student solidarity that had existed in the
past. At the moment, each group wages its own struggle, separate
from the other. Analogously, Tina Mfanga posited that the
neoliberal human rights regime has created an ‘international
division of humanity’. Applied to the local context, this division
means that the privileged elites are more ‘human’ than the masses
of working people. She cited examples of sustained campaigns waged
on social media in reaction to the violation of the rights of
prominent politicians, and the deafening silence when the rights
of the working class are violated even more. In world politics,
this can be seen in the Euro-American reaction to events in
Ukraine and Gaza. Ukrainians are presented as victims of Russia’s
expansionist agenda and thus warranting military and financial
support, whereas Palestinians are left to endure collective
punishment carried out by Israel in the name of self-defence. This
is despite the fact that Israel is the occupying power of
Palestinian territories. These events have a bearing on academic
freedom given that Israel’s carpet bombing in Gaza has not spared
higher learning institutions, which now lie in ruins.
In Dar es Salaam, Sabatho
Nyamsenda declared that academic freedom is the struggle between
supporters of neoliberalism and progressives—that is, between
those who believe that education is a commodity and those who
believe that education is a service and therefore a human right.
He argued that neoliberal academic freedom is different in the
sense that it is narrow in scope. For instance, in neoliberal
dictums, academic freedom is for academics and students only. It
excludes non-academic members of the university community. It is
for this reason that the Dar and Kampala declarations are
celebrated for widening the idea of academic freedom to include
everyone who contributes to the functioning of a university.
Nyamsenda added that the two declarations demand that
intellectuals serve the community, whereas the neoliberal
perspective replaces serving the community with consultancy work.
Gender, Sex and Sexuality
In Maputo, a panel on ‘Grounding
Academic Freedom in Feminist Terms’ shed light on how patriarchy
and its structures affect women in higher learning institutions.
Although there was no similar dedicated panel in the Dar
colloquium, thereby prompting Oloka-Onyango to signal how skewed
the gender composition of the Dar meeting was, feminist discourses
were very much part of the conversation. The main topic that
participants wanted to address was drawing connections between
academic freedom and issues of gender, sex and sexuality. Does the
suppression of academic freedom affect academics and intellectuals
differently, on the basis of gender, sex and sexuality? This is
what the participants intended to address, although it must be
noted that the discussion was dominated by gender-related issues
rather than sex and sexuality. It is clear that, three decades
after the Dar es Salaam and Kampala declarations, the overall
conditions of women in higher learning institutions have improved.
However, this was not delivered on a silver platter but was the
result of the struggle, especially by non-state actors (including
academics), to push the boundaries of inclusion. Many universities
have since established gender centres and developed sexual
harassment policies with the aim of providing safe spaces for
women. The enrolment of female students into universities has also
improved remarkably.
Despite these gains, there are
several challenges. In many cases, women still have to contend
with the difficult balance between their socially assigned roles
as chief caregivers in their homes and their professional life.
This has affected their upward mobility in academia, where
requirements for promotion for men and women are the same.
Moreover, women have found themselves on the receiving end of
inappropriate regulations, such as those enforcing a particular
dress code. There are reported cases of harassment as management
moves to implement these regulations. In many African
universities, sexual harassment particularly against women has
partly been blamed on their so-called ‘indecent dressing.’8
In Kenya, a host of universities have banned ‘indecent dressing’
and in all cases there seems to be a particular emphasis on women
dressing.
Sex for grades, various forms of
sexual harassment and the general objectification of women in
universities have been reported, making higher learning
institutions unsafe for women and girls.9
It must be noted that this is women’s plight outside higher
learning institutions, too. In Dar es Salaam, Anna Hanga presented
a study which indicated that the group most affected by sexual
abuse is children (47%), followed by women (33%). These abuses
take the form of rape (including marital rape) and other physical
abuse.
In Maputo, Ana Nhampule and
Gracinda Mataveia highlighted several other challenges that women
face in academia. A big one is that the male/female ratio is
tilted significantly in favour of men in the academic staff
category. Where one finds women, most of them are in junior
positions, and the number of senior women researchers is lower
than that of men. In the colloquium in Dar es Salaam, it was
apparent that there were fewer female participants than their male
counter-parts. After concerns were raised, it was clarified that
the invitations were extended to students but also to staff
bodies, which are mostly led by men. While affirmative action to
empower women was appreciated, Juvencio Nota cautioned against
‘gender washing’—placing women in academic positions for the sake
of numbers rather than merit. Likewise, Godwin Murunga cautioned
that there is no universal sisterhood of women, pointing to the
fact that there are multiple layers of gender discrimination in
the intersectionality of sex, sexuality, race and class.
Again, the question of capitalism
emerged, this time in relation to gender. Lyn Ossome in Maputo
argued that any attempt to find redress for women’s oppression
should address the elephant in the room, that is, capitalism and
its ideological tool of neoliberalism. Ossome further explained
that neoliberalism creates identities and forces us to choose
them. She discouraged the idea of ‘women labour’ and argued for
‘gendered labour’. She explained that what is known as women’s
labour can be equally performed by men. In addition, she argued
that instead of women’s emancipation the focus should be on the
emancipation of all, including men, who suffer different forms of
oppression. This task will require that we confront capitalism
head on. However, this view was challenged by Fred Fredericks, who
argued that confronting capitalism is a long and tedious, mammoth
task that would put us in a state of amnesia. Rather, it should go
hand in hand with addressing pressing issues of the moment, such
as the oppression of women.
On sexuality, Oloka-Onyango
pointed out that universities in Africa have become a site of dis-
crimination and microaggression on the basis of sexual
orientation. In many African countries, governments have put in
place harsh legislation against homosexuality and same-sex unions.10
Not even the university has managed to provide a safe haven for
people in the LGBTQ+ community who face discrimination. In Uganda,
the anti-homosexuality law has resulted in student-led
anti-homosexuality vigilante groups on campuses.11
Research on sexuality has become an increasingly sensitive issue,
and is sometimes prohibited. Cesaltina Abreu presented the
instance of a research project on LGBTQ+ being rejected at the
Catholic University of Angola. In many cases, academics resort to
self-censorship
as a survival mechanism for fear of losing their job or facing persecution—this is a good example of how society can curtail academic freedom. Overall, universities have remained silent about the anti- LGBTQ+ wave sweeping across the continent. In Dar, Issa Shivji expressed deep concern about this tendency. He argued that the issue is not whether one accepts diverse sexual orientations but how we ought to treat humans with dignity and respect. This view was shared by Oloka-Onyango.
as a survival mechanism for fear of losing their job or facing persecution—this is a good example of how society can curtail academic freedom. Overall, universities have remained silent about the anti- LGBTQ+ wave sweeping across the continent. In Dar, Issa Shivji expressed deep concern about this tendency. He argued that the issue is not whether one accepts diverse sexual orientations but how we ought to treat humans with dignity and respect. This view was shared by Oloka-Onyango.
The question of gender, sex and
sexuality relates to the importance of diversity and inclusion.
However, diversity and inclusion were not discussed in a
comprehensive manner. As noted earlier, gender dominated the
conversations more than sex and sexuality. In addition, there was
little to zero debate on, for instance, other marginalised groups,
such as people living with disabilities. In fact, none of the
participants belonged to this group. This is a good point to take
forward because the colloquiums are not just about academic
freedom but also democracy and sustainable development.
Technology and Academic Freedom
Technology is a major force in the fourth industrial revolution, and the participants paid a great deal of attention to the subject. As indicated above, lately there has been great concern about how Artificial Intelligence (AI), for instance, will impact academic freedom and whether it has any bearing on intellectual responsibility. In Maputo, Severino Ngoenha gave a keynote lecture titled ‘Struggles for Academic Freedom in an Information and Technological Age’, in which he advanced a number of issues.
Ngoenha asserted that the rapid changes in technology have produced different types of humans: pre-humans, post-humans and trans-humans. He warned about the possibility of biological humans co-existing with genetically modified humans. Ngoenha also expressed concerns about Africa’s place in the world of technology, drawing a parallel with the image of Afghans chasing a US military evacuation aircraft at Kabul airport.12 His argument was that there is a danger that Africa is being left behind in technology and the only thing it can do is play catch-up. In particular, he stated that Africans are not taking full advantage of available technologies, and as a result have become consumers of technologies developed elsewhere. He urged Africa to take measures to strengthen its ‘scientific citizenship’ by learning about the software of these technologies, not just the hardware. In the context of academic freedom, Ngoenha cited online classes offered to Africans by foreign universities, stating that Africa does not have control and ownership of such trends. This view was shared by Oloka-Onyango who, in his keynote addresses in Dar es Salaam and Maputo, expressed concerns about how the onlinisation and zoomification of academic activities has reduced human interaction. Moreover, these online spaces are increasingly used for bullying and state surveillance.
Technology is a major force in the fourth industrial revolution, and the participants paid a great deal of attention to the subject. As indicated above, lately there has been great concern about how Artificial Intelligence (AI), for instance, will impact academic freedom and whether it has any bearing on intellectual responsibility. In Maputo, Severino Ngoenha gave a keynote lecture titled ‘Struggles for Academic Freedom in an Information and Technological Age’, in which he advanced a number of issues.
Ngoenha asserted that the rapid changes in technology have produced different types of humans: pre-humans, post-humans and trans-humans. He warned about the possibility of biological humans co-existing with genetically modified humans. Ngoenha also expressed concerns about Africa’s place in the world of technology, drawing a parallel with the image of Afghans chasing a US military evacuation aircraft at Kabul airport.12 His argument was that there is a danger that Africa is being left behind in technology and the only thing it can do is play catch-up. In particular, he stated that Africans are not taking full advantage of available technologies, and as a result have become consumers of technologies developed elsewhere. He urged Africa to take measures to strengthen its ‘scientific citizenship’ by learning about the software of these technologies, not just the hardware. In the context of academic freedom, Ngoenha cited online classes offered to Africans by foreign universities, stating that Africa does not have control and ownership of such trends. This view was shared by Oloka-Onyango who, in his keynote addresses in Dar es Salaam and Maputo, expressed concerns about how the onlinisation and zoomification of academic activities has reduced human interaction. Moreover, these online spaces are increasingly used for bullying and state surveillance.
In Dar es Salaam, a panel on
‘Academic Freedom, Democracy and Intellectual Social
Responsibility in a Technological Age’ raised a number of issues.
Three pertinent questions were posed by Mshai Mwangola. One, how
does intellectual freedom progressively advance the transformation
of society to deliver the vision of the world the people aspire
to? Two, are intellectuals using technology effectively to connect
with individuals working in other spaces? And three, are
intellectuals using technology in such a way that will guarantee
that when their freedom is abused others will come to their
defence? These questions are crucial especially considering that
much academic research output is either still locked away from the
public, on the shelves of university libraries, or is available
online but only through a paywall. The point here is how
intellectuals use existing technological tools to disseminate
research findings. Mwangola further attempted to describe
technology as one of the aspects of Frantz Fanon’s ‘international
situation of time’, mentioned in the quote below, from Fanon’s
Wretched of the Earth13:
We must rid ourselves of the
habit, now that we are in the thick of the fight, of minimising
the action of our fathers or of feigning incomprehension when
considering their silence and passivity. They fought as well as
they could, with the arms that they possessed then; and if the
echoes of their struggle have not resounded in the international
arena, we must realise that the reason for this silence lies
less in their lack of heroism than in the fundamental
different international situation of our time.
Chambi Chachage spoke about access
to education, a key component in the Dar Declaration, in relation
to technology. He submitted that technology can help us resolve
some of our pertinent problems, such as lack of access to
education. However, it has a huge price tag in that it requires
users to own or have access to gadgets and the internet. His main
thesis was that technologies are overlaid on existing structures
of inequality in the form of income, race, gender and rural–urban
disparities. Therefore, if not used carefully, they will
strengthen such inequalities instead of narrowing structural gaps.
On top of that, technologies are not value-free. He also cited
ChatGPT technology as posing a risk to learning because it can
mimic human intelligence. Baruani Mshale argued that digital
algorithms feed users with information on similar issues so much
so that, if they are not careful, they will end up having a
one-sided worldview. To underscore this point, Tina Mfanga
lamented the tendency by intellectuals to consume state propaganda
through social media that aims to justify the eviction of street
vendors in various parts of Tanzania. This uncritical embrace of
information exacerbates intellectual irresponsibility.
There were questions around the
ownership of technology and who benefits. These alluded to the
assumption that it is the developers of technology and their
respective countries in the global North who profit. However, this
view was challenged by Zitto Kabwe, who said it is rather
reactionary to ask these questions. Instead, Africa should focus
on developing new technologies and find ways to improve existing
ones. As an example, he cited the mobile money transfer system,
M-Pesa, which is now one of Kenya’s best exports. To benefit from
ownership of technology, African governments must invest in
research and development. For his part, Issa Shivji argued against
technologies such as M-Pesa, saying that they further help to
integrate Africa into the global capitalist system. Once again,
the subject of capitalism emerged, to which Baruani Mshale
responded that we must not get caught up in the -isms but focus on
practical solutions to our many problems.
Culture and Academic Freedom
The university has for centuries
been known as an intellectual ivory tower. But it is part and
parcel of the society that intellectuals have the responsibility
to serve. As such, what happens in the university is connected to
what happens outside, that is, in society. Despite attempts to
physically separate the university from society, including the
erection of physical walls, the university cannot escape from
society. Indeed, it is the responsibility of academics to make
sure that this does not happen.
The attitudes of the academic
community are influenced by the attitudes of the general public.
Academics’ views on gender and sexuality, for instance, are likely
to be shaped by the norms of the society in which they live.
Still, this does not relieve intellectuals from their role to
advance scientific knowledge. By norms we mean culture, which is
one major society-induced method affecting academic freedom today.
As a total way of life, culture is central in advancing or
restricting academic freedom. During the two colloquiums,
participants pondered the idea of culture and its role in academic
freedom. One particular argument was presented for incorporating a
cultural element in our understanding of academic freedom. In
Mozambique, this was supported by Manuel Macia and Elisio Macamo.
The academic community was challenged to draw from African
philosophies such as Ubuntu to redefine academic freedom and
promote democracy and human rights using more culturally informed
approaches.
In Dar es Salaam, Mshai Mwangola
revisited Amilcar Cabral, who understood culture as something that
cannot be eradicated but should be used as an asset for
liberation. Bertha Kibona, on the other hand, questioned whether
the ‘Tanzanian culture’ of elderly respect enshrined even in
greetings such as “shikamoo” (meaning ‘I hold your feet’) has
contributed to limiting student activism as the young people are
expected culturally to respect and honour elders. Either way, this
query provokes thinking around the relationship between cultures
and academic freedom.
In Maputo, Filimone Meigos
underscored the centrality of culture in national development,
referring to Amilcar Cabral’s assertion that culture is the
heartbeat of the nation. It is for this reason that advocating for
the role of art and culture in national planning becomes
important. Elisio Macamo proposed that in fact the idea of
academic freedom is rooted in African culture. He gave an example
of how in Tsonga culture the idea of development is about personal
development and how we present ourselves to the world. Macamo
further argued in favour of embracing and advancing indigenous
knowledge in the learning process. This is a move against the use
of foreign concepts that speak to specific cultural and historical
contexts. Tina Mfanga echoed this point in Dar es Salaam, when she
asserted that indigenous knowledge is readily available and will
help Africa escape the entanglement of the global North’s
domination in knowledge production.
However, culture can also pose an
obstacle in promoting academic freedom. In Dar es Salaam, Mshai
Mwangola elucidated that speaking truth to power is not just about
speaking to the leadership. It is also about speaking truth to
society. In many senses, this is what the two declarations meant
to evoke in the notion of the social responsibility of the
intellectual. Like the leadership, the society is equally a
culprit when it comes to imposing norms on individuals. This is
where the culture of society becomes an important element when
discussing academic freedom. It is the responsibility of
intellectuals to challenge existing culture to facilitate its
evolution, otherwise it will die. Mwangola premised her argument
on Micere Mugo who talked about orature as a human right in her
book African Orature and Human Rights. In the book, Mugo develops
the onion structure theory, in which she compares humanity with an
onion and its many layers. Each layer is important, such that the
removal of one layer changes the whole onion. It is a philosophy
of inclusion and coexistence, similar to Ubuntu. In essence, the
theory ‘transcended parochialism, classism, patriarchy, sexism,
heterosexualism and all other confining-isms’.14
Mwangola also referred to Paulin Hountondji, who described culture
as the past (traditions) sending its legacy into the future and
how we in the present mediate that transition.
One aspect of culture that usually
features in this discussion is religion. The proliferation of
private higher learning institutions since the 1990s has opened
the way for universities that are owned or sponsored by religious
entities. Not all the non-state sponsors of higher education
institutions hold values that are consistent with academic freedom
and scientific autonomy. Religious views on issues such as
abortion, the use of contraceptives and family planning influence
the way academics balance divinity and science, very often with
the former trumping the latter. Amos Mwakigonja, a medical doctor,
told participants in Dar es Salaam that despite his Christian
faith he still teaches about evolution (not creation) and the use
of contraceptives as a means of protection from disease. This
perhaps provides a framework for understanding why, for instance,
the Catholic University in Angola rejected research on the LGBTQ+
community because it views it as uncatholic, in the same way that
students in Uganda see homosexuality to be unchristian.15
In Uganda, religious institutions
are putting pressure on universities to take a homophobic stance.
But according to the Dar Declaration, education shall be secular
and religious instruction shall be separate from secular
education, imparted to those who want to partake of it
voluntarily. Although universities continue to uphold this
important tenet of academic freedom by refraining from imposing
religious values, it is evident that religion is increasingly
shaping the minds and conduct of members of the academic
community. In Dar es Salaam, Godwin Murunga revealed that during
his undergraduate university days in the 1990s, a major shift
occurred in which the strongest and most important form of
associational life mobilised around the Christian Union. Without
doubt, freedom of worship is an inherent right accorded to all,
including intellectuals. Yet, when religious gatherings and group
prayers dominate or replace other associational clubs and study
groups, this should concern the intellectual community. Murunga
called for a full understanding of the shifts in associational
life to be able to comprehensively address issues of academic
freedom.
It was way back in 2006 when Kwesi
Kwaa Prah observed that in one of the universities in West Africa
allegiance to pentecostalist confession could influence preference
for some appointments in the university.16
Outside the university, owing to economic hardship, many in Africa
have increasingly embraced religion as their only source of hope.
Fanatics of religion have consequently managed to attract
significant followings with their prosperity gospel, placing the
responsibility to a better economic life on divine powers instead
of governments. The hope for rewards in life after death has in
the meantime replaced the promise of providing bread and butter to
starving bellies, which African independence fought for. Incapable
of providing social services to its people, the African state has
joined the congregation in seeking divine intervention for its
economic woes.17
In Nigeria, the extremist Islamism
of Boko Haram insurgents is essentially premised on the
prohibition of people from seeking ‘Western education’, which the
movement believes is forbidden by God. Although Boko Haram targets
primary and secondary education-seekers, its anti-education drive
in general makes intellectuals vulnerable to terrorist attacks by
the insurgents. In Kenya, Al Shabab militants executed 147
students at Garissa University in 2015, further underscoring the
danger posed by such forces on academic freedom.
Global Knowledge Production
Matrix
A hegemonic regime exists in the
global production of knowledge. The continuing dependency on
external funding by African governments and researchers means that
the research agenda is always set by outsiders, mainly in the
West. Faced with economic difficulties and a lack of financial
incentives, African academics have been compelled to fine-tune
their research agendas to suit those of donors, in the hope that
they will attract funding. Joe Oloka-Onyango dealt with this topic
extensively during his keynote addresses in Dar es Salaam and
Maputo. He pointed out that donors have their own interests, which
are neither altruistic nor benign. Amos Mwakigonja gave an example
of a researcher who is funded by big pharmaceuticals and is
compelled to massage findings to align with funders interests. He
also narrated the struggle of medical researchers in the global
South who had doubts over the speed with which the Covid-19
vaccine was developed. Yet they could not speak out for fear of
going against the big pharmaceutical companies and for being seen
as anti-vaccine.18
Moreover, a growing number of
African universities are getting obsessed with global university
rankings. Publishing in Western high-impact factor academic
journals is paramount for one’s academic survival and excellence.
The purpose of knowledge production is now less about scholarship
or responding to the needs of African society and more to help
universities climb the ladder of World University Rankings. This
trend has led to a domination in knowledge production in favour of
powerful global actors in the global North. The emergence of new
players such as China equally has added weight to the challenge.
In particular, China’s approach to aiding African universities and
situating the Confucius Institute within the university has raised
eyebrows. Legitimate questions are being asked about how the
Chinese presence on African campuses infuses the culture of
government censorship that is prevalent in China.
Coloniality and Academic
Freedom
Colonialism was not just the
physical conquering of territories and domination of their people.
It was also an epistemic onslaught on the colonised people. In
Maputo, this point was made by Pedro Mzilani, who castigated white
capitalism in southern Africa for its plunder and dispossession as
well as the mental colonisation it unleashed on Africans. He
argued that the two forms of colonisation, physical and epistemic,
cannot be separated. The former manifested in land dispossession,
among other outcomes, while the latter manifested in the
introduction of colonial education, among other things. Mzilani
was speaking specifically about the university system in South
Africa. In Dar es Salaam, Walter Bgoya expressed concerns about
the embrace of English language as a medium of instruction in
higher learning institutions in Tanzania. This system has created
an ‘English problem’, where students lack good command of the
language so much that they cannot fully communicate their thoughts
even when they are otherwise quite intelligent. He advocated for
the elevation of Kiswahili to the level of scientific language.
The decolonial project must therefore deliberate on the language
question.
As explained by Fred Hendricks in
Maputo, the South African case is a good example of coloniality.
He pointed out that any democracy has a paradox, which is
political equality and economic inequality. This is vividly on
display in South Africa, which has been hailed for its democracy
but has 93 per cent of its land dispossessed and in the hands of
just a few South Africans. It is the world’s most unequal country.
This inequality also manifests in academia, creating the
intellectual binary between elite universities (Stellenbosch and
Wits, among others) and the rest (such as the University of
Zululand). In such circumstances, Hendricks questions the purpose
of academic freedom to a people who have been dispossessed. Does
academic freedom mean that a homeless person, for instance, will
now own a mansion, or a peasant a wine farm? Hendricks’s remarks
invoke a discussion on the role of the Constitution in national
development, particularly the question of whether the Constitution
is an obstacle to development. He cautioned against the obsession
with constitutions, citing Foucault, who once stated that the
blood of the struggle dries up in the legal codes. Hendricks was
echoing a point made by Willy Mutunga posited in Dar es Salaam,
that constitutions do not make revolutions, rather revolutions
make constitutions. However, Mutunga maintained that constitutions
do matter.
PART III: METHODS USED
TO UNDERMINE ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN AFRICA
Legislation
In recent years, academic freedom
has been on the receiving end of draconian laws aimed at
curtailing freedoms. In Tanzania, for instance, these include the
Cyber-crime Act (2015), the Statistics Act (2015) and the
Electronic and Postal Communication Act (2010) with its Online
Content Regulations of 2022. The Statistics Act, for instance,
criminalises dissemination of data that contradicts official
government data. This provision has since been dropped, in a 2019
amendment, but not before journalists, bloggers and activists had
been punished.19 The Cyber-crime
Act has provisions which criminalise posting ‘false’ and
‘unofficial information’ in cyberspace. Likewise, the Electronic
and Postal Communications Act (2015)—Online Content Regulations
2022 criminalises any publication of online content deemed ‘false,
untrue and misleading’. A combination of these legislations poses
serious threats to academic freedom. In 2017, a UDSM student was
unlaw-fully detained and questioned by the police after he posted
on social media pictures of university buildings with cracks in
the walls.20 In trying to
navigate such precarious terrain, academics have resorted to
self-censorship.
State Interference
One way in which the state
undermines academic freedom is through infiltrating staff and
student bodies. It has been observed that in many universities
governments decide who runs student organisations, university
management and staff welfare bodies. Sometimes the state is
directly involved in running universities. In Eswatini, for
instance, King Mswati III serves as the Chancellor of the
University of Eswatini (UNESWA). This practice of the president
serving as Chancellor of public universities is observed in many
other African countries. In many of these universities, state
security agents disguise themselves as teachers, managerial staff
or even students. State interference in student politics has
become common, usually with the aim of installing student leaders
loyal to incumbent political forces. This has been made possible
by so-called university bylaws, which are vague at best. Elections
in student bodies have become a theatre of competition between
ruling party loyalists and perceived opposition loyalists. In Dar
es Salaam, Abdul-Aziz Carter, a student, complained that students
seen as radicals often have their names removed from the list when
they contest for positions during elections. He further told
participants that UDSM’s student body, known as the Dar es Salaam
University Students Organisation (DARUSO), does not represent the
interest of the students.
This prompted a response from Antiphas Panda, speaker of DA-RUSO’s parliament, who argued that the body is autonomous although he acknowledged interference from ‘other forces’—not just the ruling party. Panda even claimed that academic freedom is guaranteed at UDSM, stating that the only problem is that of democracy, in that there are challenges in exercising their democratic rights. He went on to praise UDSM top management, saying it was subordinates in the university hierarchy who were problematic.
This prompted a response from Antiphas Panda, speaker of DA-RUSO’s parliament, who argued that the body is autonomous although he acknowledged interference from ‘other forces’—not just the ruling party. Panda even claimed that academic freedom is guaranteed at UDSM, stating that the only problem is that of democracy, in that there are challenges in exercising their democratic rights. He went on to praise UDSM top management, saying it was subordinates in the university hierarchy who were problematic.
These contradicting accounts,
taken in context with other mechanisms used by the state to
control universities, point to the fact that student bodies have
been coopted by the university management. The clearly opposing
positions indicate that students are divided, one group of
students pitted against the other. This tendency has resulted in a
fractious atmosphere where it is now difficult for students to
have a common position on issues that affect their interests. In
addition, postgraduate students tend to shy away from student
politics, further adding to the lack of a unified front to advance
students’ welfare. At UDSM, external interference has in the past
led to student body elections being suspended or the results being
nullified.
At the same time, government
leaders openly speak against what they call the politicisation of
the campus. Their answer is to depoliticise the university.
Vaguely defined, depoliticisation of the university means
different things to the state and students. For the state,
depoliticisation entails containing political elements who are
critical of the government for fear that they could form an
organised opposition. This is not entirely impossible, having seen
the Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
which was born out of student politics. Suppressing critical
voices goes hand in hand with ban- ning discussions on what are
considered to be politically sensitive topics. Shokale Dlamini
gave the example of the University of Eswatini (UNESWA), where
certain topics of discussion were scrapped from the programme days
before a conference was held at the university. While containing
critical voices on campuses, governments are at the same time
promoting elements of ruling parties, a strategy which can be
described as depoliticisation by politicisation.
To address this problem and give
more autonomy to students, Abdul-Aziz Carter proposed several
measures: reduce the power of the Dean of Students, amend the
bylaws and stop the interference of the ruling party, in
particular its youth wing. Yet to implement these recommendations
requires an action plan along with sustained agitation, not just
by the students but by other stakeholders, such as UDASA. Malvin
Thongo advised that a piecemeal approach should be adopted in
which one is not too ambitious to change the entire university at
once but addresses one aspect after another.
Recruitment and In/Security of
Tenure
In many countries, universities
have had their power to recruit reduced as governments have either
fully taken over the hiring and firing of academic staff or have
become part of the recruitment process. In Tanzania, for instance,
although recruitment in public universities is largely done by the
institutions themselves, a newly introduced rule stipulates that
there should be a government presence in the recruitment process
through a representative. In addition, in the name of vetting, all
the names of selected and appointed university leaders must be
submitted to the government for approval, essentially with the
intention of installing government loyalists in higher learning
institutions. In Dar es Salaam, Hamudi Majamba gave an anecdotal
account of the process, saying that appointees are given induction
courses, in which they are lectured by, among others, government
security agencies.
The approval process by
authorities outside the university sometimes takes time. In some
cases, many university leadership positions are either filled by
acting leaders or left vacant altogether. This was pointed out by
Julius Nywenya and Robert Kakuru in Dar es Salaam who revealed
that, in some situations, an acting leader may serve for three
years waiting to be approved or replaced by a substantive leader.
Kakuru told participants that at Makerere University the position
of Deputy Vice Chancellor: Finance and Administration had been
vacant for six years! This is damaging because when there is an
acting leader, no substantive decisions can be made. In most
cases, the acting leader is inclined to rule in favour of
appointing authorities. Following efforts to demand the powers to
recruit, the government in Tanzania appears to have compromised,
but not without a price. Ng’wanza Kamata revealed that the
government has agreed to give universities autonomy to hire on
condition that they pay their salaries! This, of course, is
contrary to the Dar and Kampala declarations, which call for the
state to ensure adequate funding to higher learning institutions.
In addition, the Dar Declaration
demands that no teaching or re-searching member of the academic
community shall be transferred to another post or position within
or outside the institution without her/ his prior consent. This
is, however, no longer the case because academics are now
considered public servants who can therefore be transferred as the
authorities see fit. This has gone hand in hand with the fact that
public universities can no longer retain their retired academic
staff on a contract basis even when they want to. It is the
government that has the discrete power to renew contracts for
retired academics, a power that can be abused to target academics
considered to be government critics. Along with this comes
nepotism. Recruitment in higher learning institutions is being
done in suspect ways. Oloka-Onyango gave an example in Makerere,
where the Chairperson of the University Council is the niece of
the minister of education, who happens to be the First Lady of the
country. Furthermore, her son-in-law is the chairperson of the
recruitment board. It goes without saying that the minister’s
husband is the country’s president, who is the visitor to the
university! Robert Kakuru underscored this point, arguing that in
some cases the ruling party’s cadres are purposely placed in
universities and groomed to take up leadership positions.
Fiscal Control
As previously indicated, the Dar
and Kampala declarations demand that the state funds education. To
this effect, the state is asked to allocate 1% of its GDP to
research and development, as set by the African Union. Since the
1990s, governments have gradually but steadily withdrawn from
funding public universities, a move which has created a dire
financial situation in higher learning institutions. In public
universities, it is the government that determines fees. These
universities cannot even make a decision on the number of students
they can enrol. The fees are imposed, and so is the number of
students to be registered. This situation has resulted in
overcrowding with limited facilities. Most universities currently
lack the basic infrastructure to support the ever-growing numbers
of students, such as accommodation and public utilities.
Apart from this, fiscal policies
in some countries have created centralised financial systems where
revenues generated by universities are sent to the national
treasury. Such is the practice in countries such as Ghana,
according to Kwadwo Appiagyei-Afua. The central government then
disburses the funds to cater for its various needs, which may not
necessarily mean sending the money back to universities. This
tendency has created a situation where universities are highly
dependent on the central government to meet their financial needs.
At the same time, academic staff are significantly underpaid and
there are few or no incentive schemes. This has led to a state of
low morale across the academic community. It makes it difficult
for cash-strapped academics to ‘delink themselves or their
universities from the yoke controlled by the state’.21
Fiscal control also takes place in
the form of unequal resource distribution within the country.
Resource allocation has in most cases been channelled in favour of
government capitals and urban centres at the expense of other
places considered periphery. In Mozambique, Arsenio Cuco lamented
the tendency to allocate significant funding to higher learning
institutions in Maputo. As a result, regions such as Rovuma have
been under-funded. He stated that the farther one moved from
Maputo the fewer the opportunities. This practice speaks to
broader issues of uneven development. It points to how in-country
regionalism and marginalisation can create bigger political
problems, such as one facing Mozambique at the moment—the rise of
insurgency in the northern part of the country.
Clampdown on Students and Staff
Activism
The frequent deployment of
security forces on campus is an emerging trend and is becoming a
matter of concern.22 It goes
against the spirit of the Dar Declaration, which states that the
deployment of security agents on campus should happen only when
there is clear danger to life or property, and that the deployment
should be done only at the request of the head of the institution
in consultation with relevant committees. It seems that security
forces are being deployed on campuses even when there is no clear
danger to life and property. This has been helped by a high degree
of compliance by university management, which offers no pushback
to such practices.
Commercialisation of Education
Commercialisation of Education
The commodification of education
has reduced students to clients and universities to paid service
providers. This has created a buyer-seller relationship, turning
universities into a market where education is sold and bought.
Like a marketplace, universities are now overcrowded, at the same
time as they are understaffed. In Maputo, Shokale Dlamini informed
participants that UNESWA has six staff members only in its history
department. Student loans are often not issued timeously, and
those who fail to pay tuition fees on time are blocked from taking
part in class assignments and university examinations. They are
allowed to write their assignments/examinations immediately after
they complete the payment.
Because students are now
customers, failing them is bad for business. In Dar es Salaam,
Gerald Shija expressed concerns over a tendency in African
universities where rules are sometimes bent to appease students.
In some cases, students would for instance be allowed to write
their exams even though they had failed to attain the minimum
requirements of test marks or attendance or both. In related
cases, lecturers would be summoned by the university management
and questioned when students had failed their exam considerably.
This new reality is having far-reaching effects on the quality of
education. According to a study conducted by the Inter-University
Council for East Africa (IUCEA) and the East African Business
Council (EAB), for instance, more than 50 per cent of university
students in the region are ‘half-baked’, lacking the necessary
skills for the job market.23
Bureaucratisation of the
University
In many cases, universities are
run by managers whose inclination to exercise bureaucratic control
infringes academic freedom. For public universities, the
bureaucratisation of the university has transformed public higher
learning institutions into mere government departments. In Dar es
Salaam, participants were told that UDSM has recently changed its
letterhead to include Tanzania’s coat of arms. The letterhead
starts with ‘United Republic of Tanzania’, followed by ‘Ministry
of Education, Science and Technology’ and lastly ‘University of
Dar es Salaam’. This has gone together with questionable staff and
student mechanisms of control and monitoring. At UDSM, a guest
speaker requires prior authorisation and has to indicate the topic
of the lecture beforehand. Likewise, dignitaries such as
ambassadors are received by the Vice Chancellor only. In one
example, Issa Shivji narrated how the School of Law at UDSM failed
to host a book launch of a title by its celebrated alumnus, former
Chief Justice of Kenya, Willy Mutunga. The reason given was that
protocol required him to be received only by his counterpart in
Tanzania. This practice has discouraged lecturers from inviting
guest speakers.
In addition, academic staff who
plan to travel outside Tanzania have to obtain a travel permit,
application for which should be logged fourteen days prior to the
day of travel. The long process has to be approved by at least
four levels of the country’s public service. Such a tedious
process has significantly hampered the mobility and flexibility of
academics. Moreover, within universities, in the name of quality
control, various measures that infringe academic freedom have been
introduced. They include systems that monitor teachers and
students’ attendance, and the introduction of dress codes.
The bureaucratisation of the
university has had a negative impact on collegiality among members
of the academic staff. Those working in positions of power at
universities are no longer academic colleagues but patrons whose
job is to implement rules and regulations on their inferior
subordinates. This is paralleled by the robotisation of human
resources. In Dar es Salaam, Robert Kakuru spoke about the
categorical imperative of academic freedom where humans are
treated as a means to an end rather than an end in themselves. The
situation has not been helped by lack of incentives, poor pay and
poor teaching infrastructure. Sabatho Nyamsenda added that
postgraduate students are exploited by assigning them tutorial
roles for which they are either underpaid or not paid at all.
Unethical Practices
The idea of academic freedom as
described in the Dar Declaration has implications for social
responsibility of academics. It is for this reason that social
responsibility remains central to academic freedom discourse.
Robert Kakuru drew from his experience to argue that, in essence,
universities are supposed to function on principles of fairness
and justice. However, at Makerere, the justice infrastructure has
been under attack. He cited the decision taken by authorities to
suspend the Makerere Staff Tribunal, meaning that any violation of
the rights of staff cannot be appealed. The situation has made it
difficult when handling staff affairs.24
On the other hand, many academics
have also displayed a general lack of professional ethics. At each
colloquium, student representatives complained about their
lecturers. In Maputo, Mlamuli Makhoba described the toxic
environment created by lecturers not honouring their duty. He
stated that lecturers were always absent, busy in meetings and
conferences. In Dar es Salaam, Abdul-Aziz Carter complained about
the tendency of lecturers not to embrace criticism. Indeed, some
academics have been implicated for corruption (including sex for
grades), embezzlement of resources, nepotism and dictatorial
attitudes. It is crucial to note that such practices also extend
to students and their respective bodies. Other academics have
become semi-gods to their students. They impose ideas on students,
skip classes at will without any repercussion and are even hostile
to criticism from students. In Maputo, Tiffany Banda put the blame
on academics for making the situation difficult for themselves
simply for not behaving professionally. In most cases, it is the
students who are on the receiving end of such practices.
A lack of ethics creates an
undemocratic culture which then produces a toxic learning
environment, practically disabling students from acquiring
democratic habits. These problems, and others, have provided
justification for the state to control the university. This is to
say, much as the state has been in the wrong in curtailing
academic freedom, its interference has in some cases been
justified, thanks to malpractice by members of the academic
community. It is therefore the responsibility of the academic
community to be ethically professional in order to defend academic
freedom.
Student-on-Staff Violence and
Other Forms of Assault
Violation of the right to academic
freedom on campuses usually involves academic staff against
students than the other way round. This is understandable because
the asymmetrical power relations tend to implicate academic staff
and generate sympathy for students. In both Dar es Salaam and
Maputo, violations of academic freedom caused by students hardly
featured. It was Bertha Kibona in the Dar es Salaam colloquium who
reminded participants about this issue when she probed whether
there were cases of students violating academic freedom by
assaulting members of the academic community or destroying
property. Indeed, student activism has not always been peaceful.
In some cases, it has led to the destruction of property and
physical and emotional harm to the members of university community
and beyond.25 In South Africa,
one study implicated students for engaging in acts of violence
against not just members of staff but also other students.26
In such cases, the deployment of security forces on campuses has
been justified as the right measure to create a peaceful learning
environment. Other student assaults against members of staff have
manifested in cyberbullying in the form of defamation. Incidents
where members of academic staff are named and shamed online by
students have become common, at times on the basis of fictitious
accusations.
PART IV: CONCLUSION AND THE WAY FORWARD: WHAT TO DO
PART IV: CONCLUSION AND THE WAY FORWARD: WHAT TO DO
Building National, Regional and International Networks
To move forward as a force of
change, intellectuals must build networks within and outside their
respective countries. In Dar es Salaam, Robert Kakuru talked about
horizontal and vertical networks. The former is networks among
academics themselves, and the latter is networks with other actors
outside the higher learning institutions. The starting point of
vertical networks lies immediately outside
the society. After all, the university cannot be a closed ghetto, argued Severino Ngoenha in Maputo. Also in Maputo, Achia Anaiva expressed concerns that the understanding of academic freedom can be limited in society. However, that would not be the case in a situation where organic links existed between academics and the society.
the society. After all, the university cannot be a closed ghetto, argued Severino Ngoenha in Maputo. Also in Maputo, Achia Anaiva expressed concerns that the understanding of academic freedom can be limited in society. However, that would not be the case in a situation where organic links existed between academics and the society.
The scope of horizontal and
vertical networks must be national, regional, continental and
international. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. In some
African countries, academics have been pursuing parochial agendas,
confined to their specific universities. In some cases, solidarity
among academics of the same university is lacking. As a result,
the academic community now has a lonely, weak position that makes
it vulnerable to outside forces. Experience indicates that
solidarity is important in defending academic freedom. Ng’wanza
Kamata reminded participants in Dar es Salaam and Maputo that it
was the African academic community who campaigned for the release
of Professor Wamba dia Wamba, who had been detained in the DRC. At
UDSM, a committee that campaigned for Wamba’s release was later
transformed into UDASA. In Ethiopia, it was partly the
intervention of the global academic community that led to the
release of Professor Berhanu Nega from prison in the 1990s.
Academic associations wrote letters to the Ethiopian government
and international organisations pleading for his freedom. The same
mobilisation took place when Ibrahim Abdallah lost his job at the
University of Sierra Leone. It was clear that academic exchanges
among African academics should be encouraged with the purpose of
sharing experiences.
The task ahead, therefore, is to
move the struggle for academic freedom first from the university
to national, regional, continental and global frontiers. At the
regional level, Robert Kakuru advised that the Inter-University
Council of East Africa is a good starting point to build a strong
academic freedom regime in the region. Similar initiatives could
target other regions of the continent. Mohamed Bakari suggested
that a regional mechanism be established to adopt a
naming-and-shaming strategy for violators of academic freedom. In
addition, academics ought to build coalitions with not just other
academics but also like-minded actors in the public and private
sphere as well as global civil society. At the UDSM colloquium,
Sabatho Nyamsenda spoke about the Ujamaa Collective, a grassroots
network which brings together young socialists in the East African
region and the continent broadly. Through similar initiatives,
Nyamsenda and his colleagues have managed to produce publications
that speak to the working people in the region. One of these is an
edited book titled Wamachinga na Haki-jiji (which translates to
‘Street vendors and the right to the city), written in Kiswahili
to make it accessible.
It was also suggested by Anna
Hanga that academics could make use of human rights activists from
civil society organisations who, by the nature of their job, could
‘make noise’ to amplify the voices of academics. In addition, it
was noted by Willy Mutunga that governments that oppress other
people also oppress their own people. He used this statement to
call for solidarity beyond national borders. Therefore, beyond
Pan-Africanist solidarity, African academics ought to build
bridges that connect them with not just the global South but also
the global North. The African struggle for academic freedom must
therefore be Pan-Africanist as well as internationalist.
Yet, to be able to build such
networks, deliberate efforts must be made to dismantle the
communication barriers that exist between academics. One of these
barriers is language. It is evident that, for instance, the
linguistic division of Africa into Lusophone, Anglophone and
Francophone countries creates a problem. Itself a colonial making,
the balkanisation of Africa into these groupings has promoted
‘othering’ tendencies among Africans, weakening the much-needed
continental unity in the process. It has also promoted the idea of
identitarianism along colonial histories, compelling Africans to
choose and embrace superficial identities. To break from such
colonial confinement, an intellectual movement that is both
Pan-Africanist and internationalist is imperative. It would
cultivate a sense of solidarity among academics on the continent
and beyond. It is in this spirit that the founders of CODESRIA saw
the need to situate the organisation in Senegal despite the
political leverage of English-speaking communities in Africa. The
same logic was behind CODESRIA’s decision to hold its second
colloquium on academic freedom and sustainable democracy in
Mozambique, a Lusophone country.
Decoloniality and Critical
Scholarship
With coloniality comes
decoloniality. To define decoloniality, one needs to distinguish
it from coloniality, which is an assumption that ‘colonial
relations continue to shape and ground our present-day political,
economic, social and knowledge systems’.27
De-coloniality, therefore, is a theory that attempts to break with
past colonial realities that continue to shape present relations
between the once-colonised people and their erstwhile colonisers.
Overall, decoloniality is an intersection of feminist,
anti-racist, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggles. It is
therefore a multifaceted attempt to transform societies in the
global South by redefining neo/ colonial relations. The very idea
of decoloniality is rooted in the fact that the postcolonial
African state did not complete the transition to democracy, as
argued by Lyn Ossome in Maputo. As a result, the struggle for
academic freedom in Africa is waged in an environment where the
state still maintains its colonial identity, manifested in its
antidemocratic nature. Any attempt to exercise academic freedom
will require that academics confront this inherent colonial
structure—in other words, to decolonise the state.
Another step forward would be to
decolonise academia, with the aim of filling it with critical,
vanguard intellectuals. This was a point made by Jose Castiano in
Maputo. There is a shared concern that the young generation of
intellectuals lack critical scholarship and that this is due, in
part, to their being products of a neoliberal education. The old
generation, too, was a product of a similar colonial education.
However, it was their courage to resist and offer alternative
approaches to dominant colonial and national autocratic narratives
that stands out to this day. We are informed that Ali Mazrui, for
instance, had the courage to debate and publicly criticise
Akeno-Odok, the top security official in Uganda at the height of
Idi Amin’s dictatorship in Uganda. In another example, the Dar es
Salaam School was known for its leftist radical scholarship in the
1960s and 1970s, making the University of Dar es Salaam the Mecca
of revolutionary scholars from the continent and the African
diaspora in the Caribbean and Americas. This rich intellectual
tradition has since been replaced by a neoliberal intellectual
tradition, which has subsequently reduced the overall quality of
intellectual engagement.
In Dar es Salaam, Christian Noe,
Principal of the College of Social Sciences, revealed that the
current generation of intellectuals uses mainly quantitative
research. As a result, it does not have the tools of critical
scholarship that the old generation had. A similar trend is
observed elsewhere in other African countries, so much that the
idea of reviving the spirit of the Dar es Salaam School is now,
commendably, one of the top priorities of UDSM’s College of Social
Sciences. Noe informed participants that her college has taken
three steps in that direction. One, reviving the spirit of the Dar
es Salaam School with the aim of reclaiming UDSM’s lost space in
social sciences research. The collaboration with CODESRIA to put
together these colloquiums is part of this initiative. Two,
launching a seminar series where researchers are invited to share
their research not just with the UDSM audience but the world at
large since the seminars are both physical and virtual. Three,
since 2014, the college has launched the Voice of Social Sciences
(VSS) conference, which is an international event that brings
together social scientists from across Africa and the world.
Moreover, it is suggested that one
way of changing the tide against critical scholarship is by
introducing a critical pedagogy in schools and higher learning
institutions. Such a pedagogy would have to consider African
history and realities, which are found in diverse African
indigenous knowledges, cultures and histories. Any attempt to
formulate an Africa-centred pedagogy would have to consider this
basic fact. Indeed, the realities differ from one African country
to another, and therefore the urgency, need and tools of
decoloniality will therefore vary in degree, but not in content.
For instance, it is logical that conditions in countries such as
South Africa warrant an immediate decoloniality discourse, given
the severity of coloniality there. It is unsurprising that
students in South Africa were the first to initiate de-colonial
movements such as #Fees-MustFall, Rhodes Must Fall and Gandhi Must
Fall. However, while this is commendable, it is certainly not
enough. Such attempts must also emphasise a student-centred
approach to learning. This is im- portant in addressing the
undemocratic learning environment, which manifests in top-down
teaching practices where the teacher apparently knows everything.
A student-centred approach gives students ownership of the
learning process, empowering them to be innovative. It also helps
students to acquire and adopt democratic habits.
Re/Engaging the State
Re/engaging the state poses one
serious question: Should academic freedom be absolute? Two
opposing views were presented about the role of the state in
promoting academic freedom. The first was presented by Issa Shivji
in Dar es Salaam. He opined that in essence the state is an
authoritarian entity with little or no interest in academic
freedom. The idea that academics need to be regulated by rules
imposed by the state is therefore inconsistent with academic
freedom. Accordingly, the assumption that the state is a
stakeholder of academic freedom is fallacious. The state owns the
instruments of violence, so it cannot be for freedom. In response
to the call that academics ought to balance academic freedom and
adherence to the laws of the land, Shivji responded that academic
freedom is measured against intellectual responsibility, not by
the rules imposed by the state. Such rules, he argued, must be
formulated and implemented by academics themselves. The architects
of the Dar and Kampala declarations knew this and so associated
the two instruments with the popular struggle of the masses. In
Maputo, Lyn Ossome argued that the postcolonial state is an
illegitimate entity, and that engaging with it is to legitimise
it. The logic is that, once granted certain rights/ freedoms, the
state will demand something in return, a situation which can
result in co-optation. Any attempt to engage with the state should
therefore be mindful of risks and advantages.
On the other hand, historical
accounts of the struggle for academic freedom do not exclude the
role of the state. In Dar es Salaam, Amos Mwakigonja argued that
the state is an integral part of the community, and a key player
at that. He called for the intellectual community to learn how to
live with the state. Likewise, Noella Karemera argued that there
cannot be absolute freedom, calling for some kind of regulation
which does not necessarily restrict academic freedom. She added
that academic freedom and the autonomy of the university differ
from one country to another. In support of this view, Sylvie
Dusengimana argued that, although In Rwanda there are challenges
(such as the problems associated with lecturers and their
(mis)treatment of students), there is less interference from the
state, particularly in student politics. In this regard, it can be
said that one needs to be more specific when assessing academic
freedom. Freedom can be exercised in one aspect and suppressed in
another. There is, however, evidence from the literature where the
state adopted a neutral steering role in setting the mandate of
the higher education system towards addressing broader national
and developmental objectives.28
In both the Dar and Kampala
declarations, calls were made for the state to create a conducive
environment for academics to exercise academic freedom. Room for
engaging with the state therefore exists. The purpose here is to
work with like-minded state actors. Experience can be drawn from
Tanzania in the 1970s. Despite its authoritarian tendencies then,
the Tanzanian state still afforded intellectuals at the UDSM a
degree of academic freedom that was crucial in giving UDSM an
identity and enabling the creation of the Dar es Salaam School,
thanks to the country’s intellectual president, Julius Nyerere.
Walter Bbgoya gave an anecdote of how the president himself, for
instance, gave the green light to the publication of Issa Shivji’s
pioneering essay ‘Silent Class Struggle’, in 1970. The essay had
been seen as critical of the Tanzanian state by some actors in the
government, who had asked Nyerere to ban its publication. In a
more or less similar example in this regard, Zitto Kabwe narrated
how he and other students were arrested for protesting against the
IMF in Dar es Salaam in the early 2000s. They were released after
the president, Benjamin Mkapa, intervened, most likely because his
position towards the IMF was similar to that of the protesters.
These experiences suggest that perhaps the debate should not be
whether it is important to engage with the state but rather when
and how. That said, the state should certainly not be engaged with
on the basis of regulations but rather on issues such as funding
public universities. Universities should instead regulate
themselves.
Embracing Diversity and
Inclusion
To create a conducive environment
for academic freedom, the academic community must embrace
diversity. Despite efforts made in the struggle for gender
equality and equity, discrimination against women in particular
still exists on African campuses. The effort of gender
mainstreaming to realise gender equality and equity must continue
with the aim of removing the barriers that hamper women’s
progress. The academic community must also be exemplary in
embracing the diversity of sexualities. Specifically, the
university must play a leading role in cultivating a culture of
tolerance for minority groups, such as the LGBTQ+ in particular,
through research and engagement. In the same breath, other
minority groups, such as people with disabilities, must be part
and parcel of the university agenda to create an atmosphere of
inclusion and belonging. The same spirit should be extended to
inclusion, regardless of ethnicity, race and class.
More Research
Academic freedom in Africa is
still not well-researched. In particular, there is no significant
body of research on this topic by African scholars. In Maputo,
Carlos Cardoso called for more empirical research on academic
freedom. His concern was that the existing body of research is too
general and does not focus on specific aspects of academic
freedom. This view was supported by Fred Hendricks, who called for
more research that will establish the actual agency of academic
freedom rather than just depending on a Constitution. Indeed, the
importance of research cannot be overemphasised.
Resource Mobilisation
While continuing to press
governments to fund higher learning education, a call was made for
the academic community to find ways for alternative funding. In
Maputo, Carlos Cardoso recommended that we strengthen our capacity
to mobilise resources, such as establishing units/departments
primarily for the purpose of consultancy services and resource
mobilisation. In Maputo, Jose Octavio van Dunem urged that we have
to be pragmatic and diversify sources of funding while maintaining
our credibility. Godwin Murunga, for his part, called for more
understanding of the dynamics and politics of funding.
Specific Measures to be Taken
by CODESRIA
Godwin Murunga announced that
CODESRIA will revitalise its Academic Freedom Programme and
facilitate the establishment of regional hubs in the five regions
of its Council for this purpose. In doing so, CODESRIA committed
to doing the following:
Acknowledgement
• Invest
resources on academic freedom in the East African region
including Ethiopia. Such investment will be in the form of
supporting research and publication on academic freedom and
capacity-building through events such as the two colloquiums in
Dar es Salaam and Maputo. Adopt an inclusive approach that will
bring to the table academics as well as people and institutions
that play different roles in knowledge production.
• Intervene to provide assistance to scholars in distress.
• Revisit the Kampala Declaration by convening a continental-level meeting to review the Kampala Declaration as part of the agenda of broadening our discussion of academic freedom. CODESRIA will work with UDSM, among other institutions, to make this happen.
• Lead the effort of popularising the Dar and Kampala declarations to cultivate awareness. In particular, this effort must target the younger generation of academics and students.
• Advance efforts to make indigenous and endogenous knowledges an integral part of knowledge production with the aim of including them in the curriculum.
• Initiate a process of putting in place a plan of action with the aim of creating an implementation strategy for the Dar and Kampala declarations as well as broader academic freedom instruments. This effort will focus on developing an African academic freedom index, which will establish mechanisms of monitoring, reportage and ranking.
• Intervene to provide assistance to scholars in distress.
• Revisit the Kampala Declaration by convening a continental-level meeting to review the Kampala Declaration as part of the agenda of broadening our discussion of academic freedom. CODESRIA will work with UDSM, among other institutions, to make this happen.
• Lead the effort of popularising the Dar and Kampala declarations to cultivate awareness. In particular, this effort must target the younger generation of academics and students.
• Advance efforts to make indigenous and endogenous knowledges an integral part of knowledge production with the aim of including them in the curriculum.
• Initiate a process of putting in place a plan of action with the aim of creating an implementation strategy for the Dar and Kampala declarations as well as broader academic freedom instruments. This effort will focus on developing an African academic freedom index, which will establish mechanisms of monitoring, reportage and ranking.
Acknowledgement
The convening of the two meetings
was made possible by support from Sida in the framework of its
Drive for Democracy work. The Council would like to thank Malin
Ericsson who was the lead contact at Sida when the project was
planned and executed.
Notes
Notes
1.
See the list of participants in the two meetings at the end of
this report under annex 1 and annex 2.
2. Scholars at Risk, 2023, ‘Free to Think: Report of the Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitor- ing Project’. Available at https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/resourc-es/free-to-think-2023/#section1 (accessed 5 July 2024).
3. Wachira Kigotho, 2024, ‘How African universities in Africa lost their academic freedom’, World University News, 22 February 2024, available at https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2024022115014069 (accessed 10 July 2024).
4. Ana Ganho, 2016, ‘The murder of Gilles Cistac: Mozambique’s future at a crossroads’, Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 43, No. 147 (March), pp. 142–150, available at https://www.js-tor.org/stable/24858207?seq=1
5. Joe Oloka-Onyango, Revisiting the Struggles for Academic/ Intellectual Freedom and the Social Responsibility of Intellectuals in Africa: The Case of the Dar es Salaam and Kampala Declarations, Keynote Reflections at the Colloquium on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility, University of Dar es Salaam, November 7 to 9, 2023.
6. UNESCO, 1977, ‘Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel (1977), available at https://www.right-to-education.org/sites/right-to-education.org/files/resource-attachments/ILO_UNESCO_Recommendation_Concerning_the_Status_of_Teachers_1966_En.pdf (accessed 30 June 2024).
7. Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua, 2015, ‘Time for an African charter on academic freedom’, Univer- sity World News, 18 July 2015, available at https://www.uni-versityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20150717165536327 (accessed 25 June 2024).
8. Adam Alkali, “Concerns rises over sexual harassment on Campuses” African Newspage, 4th May 2021. Available on https://www.africannewspage.net/2016/05/concern-rises-sexual-harassment-campuses/, accessed 16th August 2024.
9. BBC News Africa, 2019, ‘Sex for Grade: Undercover inside Nigerian and Ghanaian universi- ties’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we-F0Gi0Lqs
10. Human Rights Watch, 2024, ‘Uganda: Court Upholds Anti-homosexuality Act’, available at https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/04/uganda-court-upholds-anti-homosexuality-act#:~:text=The%20Ugandan%20Parliament%20had%20passed,’aggravated%20homosexuality%2C’%20which%20includes (accessed 15 July 2024).
11. Emmaniuel Wanjala, 2023, ‘Uganda varsity students thank MPs, Museveni for anti-gay law’, The Star, 31 May 2023, available at https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2023-05-31-uganda-varsity-students-thank-mps-museveni-for-anti-gay-law/ (accessed 14 July 2024).
12. Associated Press, 2021, ‘Video shows desperate Afghans climb- ing US jet to escape’, Associated Press, 17 August 2021, available at https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-79d677c29b1e134437842217e469b481(accessed 5 July 2024).
13. Fanon, F., 1967 [1963], The Wretched of the Earth, Harmond- sworth: Penguin.
14. ‘Mīthere Gīthae Mūgo’, available at https://obits.burnsgarfield.com/obituaries/micere-mugo (accessed 10 July 2024).
15. New Vision, 2001, ‘MUK, Mukono students condemn homosexuality’, New Vision, 23 May 2001, available at https://www.newvision.co.ug/news/1034116/muk-mukono-students-condemn-homosexuality (accessed 2 July 2024).
16. Kwesi Kwaa Prah, 2006, ‘The African Nation: The state of the nation’, Cape Town: CASAS.
17. Nation, 2015, ‘Zambia prepares for national payer day to save currency’, Nation, 17 October 2015, available at https://nation.africa/kenya/news/africa/zambia-prepares-for-national-prayer-day-to-save-currency-1137306 (accessed 7 July 2024).
18. For a comprehensive review of the literature on unfair knowledge practices especially in health, see Seye Abimbola et al., 2024, ‘Un-fair knowledge practices in global health: a realist synthesis’, Health Policy and Planning, Vol. 39, No. 6, pp. 636–650. DOI: https://doi. org/10.1093/heapol/czae030
19. Oryem Nyeko, 2019, ‘Tanzania drops threat of prison over publishing independent statistics’, Human Rights Watch, 3 July 2019, available at https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/07/03/tanzania-drops-threat-prison-over-publishing-independent-statistics (accessed 7 July 2024).
20. Legal and Human Rights Centre, 2017, ‘Tanzania: Human Rights Report 2017’, available at https://www.scribd.com/document/377735286/Tanzania-Human-Rights-Report-2017 (accessed 5 July 2024).
21. Wachira Kigotho, 2024, ‘How universities in Africa lost their academic freedom’, University World News, 22 February 2024, https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2024022115014069
22. Yoliswa Sobuwa, 2021, ‘Universities must do away with deployment of police and security forces on campuses—student union’, Sowetan Live, 3 December 2021, available at https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-12-03-universities-must-do-away-with-deployment-of-police-and-security-forces-on-campuses-student-union/ (accessed 8 July 2024).
23. The East African, 2014, ‘Half of graduates in the region are unpre- pared for job market: Study’, The East African, 10 May 2024, available at https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/half-of-graduates-in-the-region-are-unprepared-for-job-market-study--1324654 (accessed 25 June 2024).
24. Since the conference, Makerere University has faced very specific issues relating to academic freedom, which involves a suspicious decision to investigate a lecturer on an exam administered in the Faculty of Law and the suspension of the Dean’s Forum. See, for instance, https://observer.ug/index.php/news/headlines/81408-nawangwe-left-out-in-the-cold-on-law-school-anita-among-exam-probe
25. Sylivester Ernest, 2011, ‘Tanzania: protests at universities, students expelled, World University News, 18 December 2011, available at https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20111216183615108 (accessed 30 June 2024).
26. Roy Venketsamy, Elaine Baxen and Zijing Hu, ‘Student-teacher violence in South Africa’s Tshwane South District of Gauteng Province: Voices of the victims’, African Journal of Education, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 49–69, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371237193_Student-on-teacher_violence_in_South_Africa’s_Tshwane_South_District_of_Gauteng_Province_Voices_of_the_victims (accessed 29 June 2024).
27. Sara Duvisac, 2022, ‘Decolonise! What does it mean?’, Oxfam International, available at https://oxfamilibrary.openre-pository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621456/rr-decolonize-what-does-it-mean-151222-en.pdf;jsessionid=71D95FDFA0EDE2617E99FAAB94795020?sequence=1 (accessed 7 July 2024).
28. Pillay, P. (2010) Linking higher education and economic development: Implications for Africa from three successful systems. CHET
Annexes: List of Participants for Dar es Salaam and Maputo Convening
2. Scholars at Risk, 2023, ‘Free to Think: Report of the Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitor- ing Project’. Available at https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/resourc-es/free-to-think-2023/#section1 (accessed 5 July 2024).
3. Wachira Kigotho, 2024, ‘How African universities in Africa lost their academic freedom’, World University News, 22 February 2024, available at https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2024022115014069 (accessed 10 July 2024).
4. Ana Ganho, 2016, ‘The murder of Gilles Cistac: Mozambique’s future at a crossroads’, Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 43, No. 147 (March), pp. 142–150, available at https://www.js-tor.org/stable/24858207?seq=1
5. Joe Oloka-Onyango, Revisiting the Struggles for Academic/ Intellectual Freedom and the Social Responsibility of Intellectuals in Africa: The Case of the Dar es Salaam and Kampala Declarations, Keynote Reflections at the Colloquium on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility, University of Dar es Salaam, November 7 to 9, 2023.
6. UNESCO, 1977, ‘Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel (1977), available at https://www.right-to-education.org/sites/right-to-education.org/files/resource-attachments/ILO_UNESCO_Recommendation_Concerning_the_Status_of_Teachers_1966_En.pdf (accessed 30 June 2024).
7. Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua, 2015, ‘Time for an African charter on academic freedom’, Univer- sity World News, 18 July 2015, available at https://www.uni-versityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20150717165536327 (accessed 25 June 2024).
8. Adam Alkali, “Concerns rises over sexual harassment on Campuses” African Newspage, 4th May 2021. Available on https://www.africannewspage.net/2016/05/concern-rises-sexual-harassment-campuses/, accessed 16th August 2024.
9. BBC News Africa, 2019, ‘Sex for Grade: Undercover inside Nigerian and Ghanaian universi- ties’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we-F0Gi0Lqs
10. Human Rights Watch, 2024, ‘Uganda: Court Upholds Anti-homosexuality Act’, available at https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/04/uganda-court-upholds-anti-homosexuality-act#:~:text=The%20Ugandan%20Parliament%20had%20passed,’aggravated%20homosexuality%2C’%20which%20includes (accessed 15 July 2024).
11. Emmaniuel Wanjala, 2023, ‘Uganda varsity students thank MPs, Museveni for anti-gay law’, The Star, 31 May 2023, available at https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2023-05-31-uganda-varsity-students-thank-mps-museveni-for-anti-gay-law/ (accessed 14 July 2024).
12. Associated Press, 2021, ‘Video shows desperate Afghans climb- ing US jet to escape’, Associated Press, 17 August 2021, available at https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-79d677c29b1e134437842217e469b481(accessed 5 July 2024).
13. Fanon, F., 1967 [1963], The Wretched of the Earth, Harmond- sworth: Penguin.
14. ‘Mīthere Gīthae Mūgo’, available at https://obits.burnsgarfield.com/obituaries/micere-mugo (accessed 10 July 2024).
15. New Vision, 2001, ‘MUK, Mukono students condemn homosexuality’, New Vision, 23 May 2001, available at https://www.newvision.co.ug/news/1034116/muk-mukono-students-condemn-homosexuality (accessed 2 July 2024).
16. Kwesi Kwaa Prah, 2006, ‘The African Nation: The state of the nation’, Cape Town: CASAS.
17. Nation, 2015, ‘Zambia prepares for national payer day to save currency’, Nation, 17 October 2015, available at https://nation.africa/kenya/news/africa/zambia-prepares-for-national-prayer-day-to-save-currency-1137306 (accessed 7 July 2024).
18. For a comprehensive review of the literature on unfair knowledge practices especially in health, see Seye Abimbola et al., 2024, ‘Un-fair knowledge practices in global health: a realist synthesis’, Health Policy and Planning, Vol. 39, No. 6, pp. 636–650. DOI: https://doi. org/10.1093/heapol/czae030
19. Oryem Nyeko, 2019, ‘Tanzania drops threat of prison over publishing independent statistics’, Human Rights Watch, 3 July 2019, available at https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/07/03/tanzania-drops-threat-prison-over-publishing-independent-statistics (accessed 7 July 2024).
20. Legal and Human Rights Centre, 2017, ‘Tanzania: Human Rights Report 2017’, available at https://www.scribd.com/document/377735286/Tanzania-Human-Rights-Report-2017 (accessed 5 July 2024).
21. Wachira Kigotho, 2024, ‘How universities in Africa lost their academic freedom’, University World News, 22 February 2024, https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2024022115014069
22. Yoliswa Sobuwa, 2021, ‘Universities must do away with deployment of police and security forces on campuses—student union’, Sowetan Live, 3 December 2021, available at https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-12-03-universities-must-do-away-with-deployment-of-police-and-security-forces-on-campuses-student-union/ (accessed 8 July 2024).
23. The East African, 2014, ‘Half of graduates in the region are unpre- pared for job market: Study’, The East African, 10 May 2024, available at https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/half-of-graduates-in-the-region-are-unprepared-for-job-market-study--1324654 (accessed 25 June 2024).
24. Since the conference, Makerere University has faced very specific issues relating to academic freedom, which involves a suspicious decision to investigate a lecturer on an exam administered in the Faculty of Law and the suspension of the Dean’s Forum. See, for instance, https://observer.ug/index.php/news/headlines/81408-nawangwe-left-out-in-the-cold-on-law-school-anita-among-exam-probe
25. Sylivester Ernest, 2011, ‘Tanzania: protests at universities, students expelled, World University News, 18 December 2011, available at https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20111216183615108 (accessed 30 June 2024).
26. Roy Venketsamy, Elaine Baxen and Zijing Hu, ‘Student-teacher violence in South Africa’s Tshwane South District of Gauteng Province: Voices of the victims’, African Journal of Education, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 49–69, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371237193_Student-on-teacher_violence_in_South_Africa’s_Tshwane_South_District_of_Gauteng_Province_Voices_of_the_victims (accessed 29 June 2024).
27. Sara Duvisac, 2022, ‘Decolonise! What does it mean?’, Oxfam International, available at https://oxfamilibrary.openre-pository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621456/rr-decolonize-what-does-it-mean-151222-en.pdf;jsessionid=71D95FDFA0EDE2617E99FAAB94795020?sequence=1 (accessed 7 July 2024).
28. Pillay, P. (2010) Linking higher education and economic development: Implications for Africa from three successful systems. CHET
Annexes: List of Participants for Dar es Salaam and Maputo Convening
Annex 1: List of
Participants in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
|
No |
NAME |
ORGANISATION |
COUNTRY |
|
1. |
Christine
Noe |
University
of Dar
es Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
2. |
Ng’wanza
Kamata |
University
of Dar
es Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
3. |
Richard
Sambaiga |
University
of Dar
es Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
4. |
Muhidin
Shangwe |
University
of Dar
es Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
5. |
Issa
G. Shivji |
University
of Dar
es Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
6. |
Opportuna
Kweka |
University
of Dar
es Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
7. |
Mona
Mwakalinga |
University
of Dar
es Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
8. |
Hamud
Majamba |
University
of Dar
es Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
9. |
Amstrong
Matogwa |
University
of Dar
es Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
10. |
Sabatho
Nyamsenda |
University
of Dar
es Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
11. |
Boniphace
Nelson |
University
of Dar
es Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
12. |
Chambi
Chachage |
Independent
Researcher |
Tanzania |
|
13. |
John
A. Mahugija |
University
of Dar
es salaam
Academic, Staff Associa-
tion (UDASA) |
Tanzania |
|
14. |
Budeba
Mlyakado |
Dar
es Salaam
University College
of Education |
Tanzania |
|
15. |
Amos
Mwakgonja |
Muhimbili
University of
Medicine and Allied
Science (MUASA-MUHAS) |
Tanzania |
|
16. |
Nizar
Visram |
Independent
Researcher |
|
|
17. |
Matrona
Kabyemela |
University
of Dar
es Salaam, Tanzania |
Tanzania |
|
18. |
Harold
Hutouh |
Mzumbe
University |
Tanzania |
|
19. |
Gerald
Shija |
University
of Dodoma |
Tanzania |
|
20. |
Jovine
Emmanuel |
Mkwawa
University
College
of
Education,
(UDASA-
MUCE) |
Tanzania |
|
21. |
Hezron
Mwakabona |
Mbeya
University
of Science
and Technology |
Tanzania |
|
22. |
Julius
Ntwenya |
ASAPUCT |
Tanzania |
|
23. |
Alley
Nassoro |
Zanzibar
University |
Tanzania |
|
24. |
Hamis
Seif |
Dar
es Salaam
University
Students’ Organization
(DARUSO) |
Tanzania |
|
25. |
Belinda
Zephrine Galeba
(Vice President) |
DARUSO |
Tanzania |
|
26. |
Abdul-Azizi
Carter |
University
of Dar
es Salaam
(Student) |
Tanzania |
|
27. |
Rogathe
Samwel Ombay
(President) |
University
of Dar
es Salaam
(Student) |
Tanzania |
|
28. |
Vannesa
Rutabana |
Muhimbili
University of
Medicine and Allied
Science (MUASA-MUHAS) |
Tanzania |
|
29. |
Godfrey
Daniel Giladu
(President) |
University
of Dodoma
Students, Association |
Tanzania |
|
30. |
Ruth
Merik (President) |
Mkwawa
University
College
of
Education_Student
Union |
Tanzania |
|
31. |
Edwin
Ntabinda (President) |
Mzumbe
University
– SUDENTS
UNION |
Tanzania |
|
32. |
Baruani
Mshale |
TWAWEZA |
Tanzania |
|
33. |
Tina
Mfanga |
UWAMAMA,
Dar
es
salaam |
Tanzania |
|
34. |
Zito
Kabwe |
ACT-Wazalendo |
Tanzania |
|
35. |
Kido
Jasper |
Student/Poet |
Tanzania |
|
36. |
Anna
Henga |
Legal
and Human
Rights Centre
(LHRC) |
Tanzania |
|
37. |
Khalifa
Said |
The
CHANZO |
Tanzania |
|
38. |
Walter
Bgoya |
Mkuki
na Nyota
Publishers |
Tanzania |
|
39. |
Adebayo
Olukoshi |
Wits
University,
South
Africa |
Nigeria |
|
40. |
Willy
Mutunga |
Former
President of
the Supreme Court of
Kenya |
Kenya |
|
41. |
Mshai
Mwangoa |
Independent
Researcher |
Kenya |
|
42. |
Maloba
Wekesa |
University
of Nairobi
Academic Staff,
Union Kenya |
Kenya |
|
43. |
Melvine
Thongo |
University
of Nairobi Students Council
Kenya |
Kenya |
|
44. |
Maseruka
Granemar Robert |
Makerere
University |
Uganda |
|
45. |
Joe
Oloka Onyango |
Makerere
University |
Uganda |
|
46. |
Noelle
Josiane Umuhoza Karemera |
University
of Rwanda |
Rwanda |
|
47. |
Dusengimana
Sylvie |
University
of Rwanda |
Rwanda |
|
48. |
Horicubonye
IIdephonse |
University
of Burundi |
Burundi |
|
49. |
Habarugila
Seleman |
University
of Burundi |
Burundi |
|
50. |
Isabel
Casimiro |
CODESRIA
President |
Mozambique |
|
51. |
Godwin
Murunga |
CODESRIA
Executive Secretary |
Kenya |
|
52. |
Samwel
Fongwa |
CODESRIA
Program Officer |
Cameroon |
|
53. |
Bertha
Kibona |
CODESRIA
Program Manager |
Tanzania |
Annex 2: List of Participants in Maputo, Mozambique
|
No. |
NAME |
ORGANISATION |
COUNTRY |
|
1. |
Godwin Murunga |
CODESRIA Executive
Secretary |
Kenya |
|
2. |
Bertha Kibona |
CODESRIA Program
Manager |
Tanzania |
|
3. |
Samuel Fongwa |
CODESRIA Program
Officer |
Cameroon |
|
4. |
Joe Oloka-Onyango |
Makerere University |
Uganda |
|
5. |
Kamata Ng’wanza |
University of
Dar es
Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
6. |
Pedro Mzileni |
University of
Zululand |
South
Africa |
|
7. |
Shokahle Dlamini |
University of
Swaziland |
Swaziland |
|
8. |
Simbarashe Gukurume |
University of
Johannesburg |
Zimbabwe |
|
9. |
Tiffany
Banda |
University
of Malawi |
Malawi |
|
10. |
Sibeso Lisulo |
University of
Zambia |
Zambia |
|
11. |
Vincent
Musilikani |
University of
Zambia |
Zambia |
|
12. |
Fred Hendricks |
Rhodes University |
South
Africa |
|
13. |
Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua |
University of
Ghana |
Ghana |
|
14. |
Muhidn Juma Shangwe |
University of
Dar es
Salaam |
Tanzania |
|
16. |
Lyn Adongo
Ossome |
CODESRIA
President |
Kenya |
|
17. |
Jose Octavio
Serra Van-Dunem |
Pedagogical University |
Mozambique |
|
18. |
Carlos Cardoso |
Center
for Social
Studies Amílcar
Cabral (CESAC) |
Guinea-Bissau |
|
19. |
Cesaltina Abreu |
Catholic University
of Angola |
Angola |
|
20. |
Arcenio Francisco
Cuco |
University of
Rovuma |
Mozambique |
|
21. |
Gilson Lazario |
Agostinho Neto
University |
Angola |
|
22. |
Maria das
Neves |
Former Prime
Minister, Sao Tome |
Sao Tome |
|
23. |
Achia Anaiva |
LEMUSICA Civil
society |
Mozambique |
|
25. |
Nontethelelo Nkambule |
Limkokwing University
of Creative
Tech |
Eswatini |
|
27. |
Mlamuli Makhoba |
University of
Zululand |
South
Africa |
|
28. |
Manuel Guilherme
Junior |
Eduardo Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
29. |
Elisio Macamo |
University of
Basel |
Mozambique |
|
30. |
Ana Nhampule |
University Joaquim
Chissano |
Mozambique |
|
31. |
Isabel Casimiro |
Eduardo Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
32. |
Teresa Cruz
e Silva |
Eduardo Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
33. |
Nelson Zavale |
Eduardo Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
34. |
Gacinda Mataveia |
Eduardo Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
35. |
Crisófia Langa
da Câmara |
Eduardo Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
36. |
Juvencio Nota |
Pedagogical University |
Mozambique |
|
37. |
Jose
Castiano |
Pedagogical
University |
Mozambique |
|
38. |
Elisio
Jossias |
Eduardo
Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
39. |
Filimone
Meigos |
Higher
Institute of
Arts and
Culture |
Mozambique |
|
40. |
José
Macuane |
Eduardo
Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
41. |
Manuel
Macie |
Eduardo
Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
42. |
Célia
Cuna |
Eduardo
Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
43. |
Severino
Ngoenha |
Technical
University
of Mozambique |
Mozambique |
|
44. |
Chapane
Mutiua |
Eduardo
Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
45. |
Carlos
Arnaldo |
Eduardo
Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
46. |
Carlos
Fernandes |
Eduardo
Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |
|
47. |
Helio
Maungue |
Eduardo
Mondlane
University |
Mozambique |