Leveraging knowledge for university development

Dec 27, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Our own University of Guyana (UG) currently is attempting to shape Guyana’s tertiary education through developing a strategic plan; and it’s tempting but inappropriate at this time to propose aspects of new organisational structure, until we know what the approved strategies are; for structure always follows strategy.
And so against this background, it may be worth reviewing some observations in higher education worldwide.
Former Secretary General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities Dr. John Rowett noted that several challenges face universities: financially sustainable enrolment expansion, equity in access, quality outcomes, and good governance in higher education.
Dr. Rowett feels that we can remove such ordeals, if governments themselves position university education centrally within their national strategies; but he added that simultaneously, universities, too, will have to effect changes in organisation and curricula, and establish partnerships with all stakeholders, to effectively address the challenges.
Let me say that the Guyana Government has tertiary education centrally within its National Development Strategy, under Chapter 20, “B.
Policies Specific to Levels of Education.” Reviewing Chapter 20 will clearly demonstrate this Government’s commitment to university education and its recognition of the university’s vital responsibilities in national development, improving societal equity, consolidating democracy, achieving national unity, and inputting global peace and security.
Undoubtedly, policy changes and flexible strategic plans for universities will be mandatory in this era, carrying a record-breaking escalation of university education in human history.
In 2002/03, UNESCO recorded 132 million tertiary students globally; and this figure may reach 306 million in 2025; tertiary student enrolment in non-OECD countries will grow from 69 million in 2002/03 to 255 million in 2025; these are results of a democratization of access and a clear recognition of the imposing status of human capital.
Today, we recognise that the human resource factor is critical for production and national development; but this human factor was always present among the traditional factors of production: land, labour, capital, and entrepreneurship; but it obtained little recognition because of the over-emphasis on capitalism as the dominant economic system of production, where capital (physical) received prominence.
Tertiary education, today, has to endow this human factor into its own with the prominence it deserves; requiring serious policy changes in access, curriculum, and placement; that is, translating knowledge emanating from research in these areas into action.
The Report of the Inter Academy Council Inventing a better future: a strategy for building worldwide capacities in science and technology makes the case for expanding science and technology research for national development and with governmental commitment to sustain universities; again, a case where knowledge requires translation into practice.
At a time when many governments continue to cut expenditures on higher education, the Guyana Government continues annually to provide the bulk of funding at the University of Guyana. And according to the UNESCO Global Education Digest 2006, Guyana, in relation to Commonwealth countries, ranks quite well, with 5.5% on public expenditure on education at all levels.
Tertiary education today facing escalating enrolments and the need to assert a critical and dominant presence for science and technology must develop priorities for action. And so the Conference of Executive Heads of Universities in 2006 recognised these as priorities: access to higher education; gender equality; centrality of science, technology and innovation; renewing the African University; community engagement; university leadership; HIV/AIDS; engagement with students.
Nonetheless, priorities and plans, emerging from appropriate research, need translation into action. Historically, UG never publicly showed a dearth on ideas on how to achieve efficiency and effectiveness.
For instance, examine a few that I sourced from UG’s own ORMP data: Vice-Chancellor Dr. George Walcott in 1986 asked Faculty Heads for a 5-year Development Plan; nothingness largely followed; an IDB loan initiated a programme between 1986 and 1991 for Human Resource Training and Development inclusive of UG and some technical institutions; some benefits accrued; 1991: UG gave birth to an Academic Plan 1990-1995; nothingness largely followed; 1995: the Distance Education Department of the Institute of Adult and Continuing Education also gave birth to a 5-year Development Plan; 1996: President of Guyana Dr. Cheddi Jagan instituted The Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the University of Guyana from which 40 recommendations emanated; Cabinet approved most of the recommendations, with some graduating to the functioning mode; 1996: the Jamaican Trevor Hamilton and Associates Ltd. produced the Conceptual Programme for Improving the University of Guyana’s (UG’s) Cost-effectiveness and Enhancement of its Relevance.
I say ‘nothingness largely followed’ on a few occasions, not to induce any negativity; but to point out, drawing from Pablos-Mendez et al, that sometimes there is a gap between what knowledge is available and what we achieve in practice with this knowledge – the ‘know-do’ gap. Bridging the gap at UG requires leveraging knowledge effectively to reach high standards in tertiary education. UG needs to attend to knowledge translation.
It is research in its traditional pursuit of accumulating knowledge, the best evidence, that will assist in bridging the gap, but two things are important to recognise: (1) research cannot be for research sake, it has to be integral to the strategic process; and (2) in a persisting global debate on how to bridge the gap, some universities in the developing world have minimum representation when it comes to conducting randomized controlled trials in largely the public health area, systematic reviews, and using the general mixed methods design, and conducting vital research projects in sync with national development; this underrepresentation deepens the divide between what is the best evidence that is available for improving governance, quality student performance, quality faculty, sustaining accreditation status, innovative and quality curricula, etc., and, what indeed, is relevant, feasible, and affordable in poor countries.
I guess I am going on about how to exploit the best available knowledge or evidence in policy and practice. In this pursuit, there is a danger of applying ‘information and knowledge’ as if they are equivalent; Pablos-Mendez et al would say that information is clear and factual and flows quite freely, while knowledge comes from the mixing of information with people’s beliefs and their contexts; for this reason, we see how there is the implantation of knowledge in people.
And that’s why we say that it is this knowledge that pushes people to action.
Prem Misir

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