Comparing American and British Legal Education Systems: Lessons f ...

In the eyes of some of these expatriates, Africa was a breeding ground on which to gain valuable experience before returning home to Europe, Asia or America.

Also, the newly independent African States provided an opportunity for some of these expatriates to see the outside world for the first time in their lives. In Africa, the white expatriates enjoyed a good standard of living that they would never have dreamt of in their home countries. And today, we see that many academic programmes at African universities resulted from the in-put of some of these expatriate academics. Of course, it is not surprising that some academic programmes were developed on the basis of the expatriates’ own view of the world and on the curriculum at the universities were these expatriates studied. That is not to say there were no credible and well-meaning expatriates in Africa. It is just that the category of credible and well-meaning expatriates consisted of a few individuals. In part, this is the history of the system of higher education in many parts of the Third World today.

1.4 The Coming on Board of Indigenous African Academics

As the economies of the newly independent African States began to crumble, expatriate academics started to leave. And the weakening of the post-colonial African economies gave reason for some expatriates to return to their home countries. Other expatriates were, however, not deterred by the deteriorating economic climate. They simply moved over to more prosperous African economies. However, as more expatriates left, a few indigenous African academics rose quickly to the ranks of associate and full professor, replacing the expatriates. This sudden ‘professorial milestone’ by some indigenous African academics was, in essence, a superficial way in which African universities tried to deal with the exodus of foreign academics while at the same time attempting to please the host government that African universities had succeeded in empowering blacks to senior academic positions.