Power, Politics, and Higher Education in Southern Africa: International Regimes, Local Governments, and Educational Autonomy By José Cossa

Power, Politics, and Higher Education in Southern Africa: Interna ...

Chapter 1:

Introduction

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Although it is not my goal to unveil the nature of the conflict between the AAU and the WTO/GATS, nor is it my goal to use this situation as a case study, I use the interaction between these regimes as a point of departure and pay attention only to those concerns that relate to the conceptualization, interpretations, assumptions, and power relations manifest in the interaction. Specifically, the AAU (2004) statement that triggered this study is the affirmation that:

[u]nder WTO/GATS, education has been included among the tradable service sectors that would be regulated by the complex rules and legal arrangements of the WTO protocols. Thus, higher education would be traded as a commodity on the world market, with barriers to such trade either reduced or eliminated. Already, transnational education provision is generating huge revenues for “exporting” countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand. However, many developing countries, in no position to export, are liable to open up their domestic education markets to foreign providers. With this opening up will come limitations to policy independence in relation to education and threats to the public higher education sector, particularly where that sector is already weak. Assuring the quality of transnational provision will also be a matter of concern. These and other critical issues need to be the subject of public discourse among all stakeholders. (p. 1)

The concern over the implications of GATS on higher education in Africa led the AAU to organize conferences to specifically address issues such as limitations to policy independence and threats to the public higher education sector. Both concerns call into question the extent of power that the regional bodies and individual countries in the region will have if the protocols are welcomed, particularly because there is already in place an attempt to balance quality of education in the region through programs such as transnational education (TNE). In addition, there is concern that if the power of the regional bodies and individual countries is diminished by the protocol, there is the risk that regional higher education will revert to dependence in a neocolonial fashion and that national knowledge systems will continue to be devalued. The AAU (2004) asserted that: