Comparing American and British Legal Education Systems: Lessons for Commonwealth African Law Schools
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Chapter 1:  Introduction
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According to Wikipedia, in the US and Canada, ‘unenlightened individuals use the term professor as simply a polite form of address for any teacher, lecturer, or researcher employed by a college or university, regardless of rank.’13 However, it is important to recognize that in many other countries, to gain the title of professor, there is a huge milestone that very few people ever achieve.14 In essence,

The basic difference between levels of professor according to the national academic system is that in North America, the designation is based on career, whereas in Europe it is based on position. That means that if a North American Assistant Professor is performing particularly well, he or she can be promoted to Associate Professor, and if this is the case again, on to (full) Professor . In the European system, the different fields and sub-fields of teaching and research are allotted certain (professorial) chairs, and one can only become a professor if one is appointed to such a chair (which then has to be free, i.e., unoccupied). Therefore, the different professorial ranks are not necessarily comparable.15

1.5 From Years of Pioneer Professorships to Years of Under-Funded Universities

The historical epoch in which freshly graduated African PhD holders began to ascend quickly to senior academic ranks of associate and full professor is what is referred to here as ‘the years of pioneer professorships in Africa’. Parallel developments were taking place in the national economies of post-colonial African States. Their governments were busy nationalising strategic industries and placing the nationalised industries under the management of indigenous African technocrats and political appointees. Indeed, the years of ‘pioneer professorships’, like the years of nationalisations, were often a time riddled with notorious political overtones, especially where managerial, administrative or academic appointments were made solely on political grounds and consideration. Politics started entering academia.