Knowledge Production and Contradictory Functions in African Higher Education

This volume contains 12 chapters on positive and negative factors involved in knowledge production in African higher education, based on the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA) project, which studies the relationship between higher education and development in Africa, as well as the change dynamics in eight African flagship universities, their socioeconomic and political contexts, and their ability to transform into research-intensive institutions. After an introduction on the role of universities and the African context, chapters discuss the performance of these universities according to indicators related to knowledge production, including research productivity, masters and doctoral enrollments and graduations, and the proportion of academic staff with PhD degrees and research publications; the internationalization of research activities; and the internationalization of the doctorate in South Africa. Further chapters address research incentives in these universities, including faculty perceptions of factors that influence research productivity and financial incentives; system-level governance arrangements, particularly the roles and functions of government agencies; and aspects of university engagement with students and the outside community. Contributors are researchers from Africa, the US, and Europe. Distributed in North America by the African Books Collective. Annotation c2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)