GHANA: African universities scrutinise controversial education policy

Photo: IRIN

Legon University, Accra where facilities are limited

ACCRA, 29 April 2004 (IRIN) - Educationalists from across the continent have been examining the implications for Africa of a controversial World Trade Organisation (WTO) sponsored deregulation policy on education systems across the continent. Officials from African Universities and Tertiary Institutions met for three days in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. The Secretary-General of the Association of African Universities (AAU), Professor Akilagpa Sawyer, admitted African higher education institutions and governments had yet to respond effectively to the WTO-backed changes. "This is a new area in which our members have little or no knowledge about,” Sawyer told IRIN. In 1995, the WTO started a General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), a set of multilateral and legally enforceable rules governing international trade in 12 service areas including air and land transport, health, tourism and most recently, education. In some countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand, the international nature of higher education has turned it into a multi-billion dollar business. By bringing education under GATS, signatories will be expected to apply rules that regulate international trade to their educational systems. This means, an aggressive liberalisation of trade in services, free competition among service providers and unimpeded access to international markets. Under this arrangement all 146 WTO member countries, counting the European Union as one country unit, will be treated equally in terms of access to the higher education market in each country. "Before our governments make commitments, we need to discuss this new policy. Our participants will then go home better informed, better aware and more prepared to shape their country policies in this area," Sawyer told IRIN. The inclusion of education as a tradable service within GATS and the apparent haste with which Western countries want to co-opt developing countries raised a lot of concern in Accra. There were warnings that developing countries appeared largely ignorant about the impact of the 'open door commercial education policy' on their weak, run down and heavily subsidised public educational systems. According to the AAU, many developing countries, especially in Africa, are unlikely to become education 'exporting' countries because they will not attract large numbers of paying students from overseas. However by signing up to GATS, they will have to open up their domestic higher education markets to foreign providers. The AAU believes that African countries need to come together to strengthen their position in dealing with these foreign providers. "Any arrangement which assumes equal players with equal capacities gives us Africans trouble because we are not strong individually to play the game. However, one way we can defend our positions is to get together as one unit," Sawyer said. Proponents of the 'open door educational' policy say it is inevitable in the near future. Many countries are already operating one form or another of the policy, backing student exchange programmes, running virtual universities and operating satellite campuses abroad. They say it will provide new opportunities and benefits, build capacity through cooperative linkages and partnerships as well as enhance economic growth through increased trade. These, the open door advocates argue, will provide the lifeblood for institutions of higher education in developing countries, especially in Africa, which are currently under-financed, poorly staffed, and struggling to adapt to World Bank and IMF-backed reforms. However, world trade watchers, who oppose the idea of making education a trade commodity, have already slammed the new policy saying it is doomed for failure. They draw parallels with last year’s failed WTO talks in Cancun, Mexico, when the world's richest countries rejected appeals from poorer nations to amend international trading systems in their favour. "People think that GATS is simply about liberalisation, which is good for the economy. GATS simply says: “remove your obstacles so that I can come and operate profitably””, Tetteh Hormeku of Third World Network-Africa, told IRIN. "Unfortunately, these so called obstacles are measures developing countries have put in place to support and nurture the growth of their own sector. Naturally, we have to be apprehensive about these policies that are being forced down our throats," Hormeku added. As of March 2004, only 41 out of the 146 WTO member countries have submitted offers to provide access to their domestic education market. None of these offers are from Africa. Three African countries - Congo, Lesotho and Sierra Leone - made initial commitments to higher education when GATS was founded almost a decade ago. But experts say the government involved did not know what they were signing. Recommendations from the Accra meeting will feature at the General Conference of the AAU in February 2005, where representatives will discuss the matter further.