Abstract:
The article critically reviews global discourses in the academic writing on
comparative education dealing with the crises in African higher education. Several
analyses explain how the struggling education systems can overcome obstacles and
join the modern world in accordance with Western developmental models. One of
the most common methodologies used to analyse comparative higher education
employs the nation state as the main analytic unit. We might learn about how
government policies influence reform at tertiary institutions, or how the university
structure of one country compares with another; but little about the problematic
impact of globalisation on the patterns observed at the national levels. Informed by
writing on postcolonialism, the article proposes alternatives to the current literature: it advocates the development of critical knowledge systems and independent
institutions, rooted in local societies and social struggles.
