Response to article in Chronicle of Higher Ed. on lack of African professors

I read the important article, "Africa's New Crisis: a Dearth of Professors," in the Chronicle of Higher Education about a phenomenon that could become a very real problem: a lack of doctoral students and professors in Africa to meet growing demands for African educational institutions. It is vital that African universities get the adequate financial and human resources, funding, and opportunities to train the trainers.

Working for several years as the external relations office head of the oldest and still the largest university in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa University (official site), in the late 1990s, I was confronted with this reality and the problems indicated in the article.

It is for these reasons that it is so important for American universities to seriously reassess, bolster, expand, and strengthen their international assistance programs and to vigorously assume the responsibility of providing scholarships and research opportunities to African academics.

For African academics to keep up with their counterparts in Asia and Latin America, at a minimum, and to undertake effective research and offer their students a quality education which will produce a well-educated future generation of African professionals and leaders, Africa needs assistance in what I would call "capacity building measures." If the educators do not have advanced degrees well and above master's and Ph.D. degrees, they would be at the same level as the students they are teaching. Africa can not meet this challenge by itself.

Let’s hope against all odds that the crisis of Africa in the academic realm would improve and not ever exacerbate to the point of irreversible permanent damage. Meanwhile, kudos should go to such institutions like Partnership for Higher Education in Africa and similar ones who render assistance trying to rectify the problems faced by higher education institutions in Africa. Based on mutual interest and aiming to create a win-win situation, let's all of us pull together and chip in what we can.