Association of African Universities
A correspondent takes a look at the Association of African Universities after its last conference in Accra recently."Truly in unity lies strength." This no doubt was the statement on the lips of all the delegates and observers who congre- gated at the State House in Accra recently for the celebration of the 18th anniversary of the Association of African Universities (AAU).
For a Pan-African Association like AAU, eighteen years is not all that long a period for an impartial assessment in terms of success and failures, however, the delegates were objectively unanimous in saying that a lot has been achieved since its inception.
The history of the Association has it that the idea of creating it cropped up when most newly independent African countries, faced with acute shortage if not the non-existence of technological and human resources, saw the need to come together and mobilise their actual potential capabilities. In fact they were confident that their strength will reside in their coming together to form an association.
In September 1962, UNESCO organised in Tananarive, (Malagasy) a confer- ence on the future of Higher Education in Africa. The heads of African institutions who attended this conference decided during a private meeting out of the conference to meet in Khartoum to examine, among many other things, the practical means of establishing and developing inter-University co-operation in Africa and to take the necessary measures aimed at creating an organisation which could enhance this co-operation.
During the meeting in Khartoum which was held in September 1963, it was deci- ded that an association of African Universities should be created and that a committee should prepare a draft constitution.
The Conference for the drafting of the constitution was held four years later in Rabat, Morocco.
It gathered representatives from 34 Universities and adopted the Constitution of the Association. AAU which has its headquarters in Accra, Ghana currently boasts of a membership of 84 Universities spread over 37 independent countries in Africa.
The objectives of the Association as its current president Prof. Makany sums up are "to promote a fruitful co-operation between member Universities through the exchange of teachers, students and information and through the organisation of meetings which offer occasions of fruitful exchange of experiences on different subjects such as programmes on teaching and research, methodology of teaching the financial management of the Execu- tive Board which meets once every year".
Over the years the AAU has embarked on two major programmes which were the training of University teachers and anti- famine programmes on Food/Nutrition.
By this way not only has the Associa- tion timely responded to the expressed needs of most Universities in Africa for reliable shipping services by having a sufficient number of teachers to cope with expansion and development of universities, but have also fairly succeeded, in co-operation with the United Nations University and other organizations, in drawing up a programme on Food/Nutrition to be implemented by Universities and research institutions in the continent.
So far according to the AAU current President, the Association has trained about 5,000 graduates and 300 postgraduates.
The AAU achievements are too many to be recounted here, but a point of significance worthy of note is that the Association has been able to create friendship and spirit of co-operation among African intellectual centres which sprouted from different cultural, social and educational backgrounds and systems.
Despite these feats, the Association is not without problems, the most endemic being finance. As Prof. Makany puts it. "we would have achieved more if we had got more contributions".
Over the years massive contributions had come from the government of Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Congo, Ivory Coast, Zaire, Togo, Benin etc. and from International Agencies such as USAID, CIDA, NUFFIC, DAAD, IUC.
But of late with the expansion of programmes and activities of AAU as against dwindling contributions from these sources, the Association's finances are nearing depletion.
However many observers believe that now that African governments have realised the benefits to be derived from the Association they will not be in hesitation when it comes to paying their contributions.
