The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is unlikely to produce sufficient health sciences graduates to meet the region’s desperate needs in HIV and Aids and other areas of healthcare.
This is because of low student enrolments at universities in the region, a newly released study has found.
The study was conducted by the Johannesburg-based Southern African Regional Universities Association (Sarua) and is one of four to be featured in Towards a Common Future: Higher Education in the SADC Region, Research Findings from Four Sarua Studies. Sarua was formed in 2007 and aims to enable this sector to respond to the developmental challenges it faces.
The publication, which was edited by educationist Piyushi Kotecha, the chief executive of Sarua, provides baseline data, which was lacking until now. It paints a sombre picture of higher education in the region.
Undertaken in 2008, the research looks at the profile of higher education, funding frameworks, the state of public science and university-firm interaction in the region. Sixty-four public universities were surveyed in 14 countries. One of the findings is that only 0.4% of the 18- to 24-year-old population in the SADC is enrolled in higher education. If South Africa is excluded, this drops to 0.2%.
It explains that, overall, most SADC students are enrolled in the humanities and social sciences (410 254 students). “Enrolment in the health sciences [77 480 students] is low, especially given the importance of preventing and treating HIV and Aids, malaria and other diseases, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health.”
South Africa enrols the largest number of health sciences students (51 720) followed by the DRC (13 019) and Tanzania (3 991).
Although science and technology (with 236 632 students) is a key area of focus for the SADC in terms of development, enrolments in this area are also low. Furthermore, low numbers of students are registered at postgraduate level — and when South Africa is excluded only 685 (0.2%) are registered for PhDs. When South Africa is included this number increases to 1%, “which is still very low”.
The researchers point out that these low numbers of postgraduate students are linked to the challenges of research output.
With regard to academic and research staff, excluding South Africa, a big gender disparity is prevalent. In health sciences, for example, of the total academic and research staff of 1 942, only 27.7% is female. In business, law and management (1 892 staff) only 19.5% is female. Of the 4 598 staff in science, engineering and technology 82.8% is male.
Meanwhile, higher education institutions participating in this study identified critical staff shortages in science, engineering and technology, business management and law most frequently, while the health sciences were also identified as a site of staff shortages, researchers point out.
But the scenario is not all gloomy: education ministries have recognised the staffing problem and are looking for ways to improve capacity. Most institutions have staff development mechanisms in place. Researchers say that although student enrolment is reported to have increased in the past five years, most countries provide some programmes in fields of study essential for regional development and high value is placed on regional cooperation.
Meanwhile, public science systems are weak in terms of governance as well as poorly funded. Kotecha points out that Africa’s share of world science as measured by papers published in the citation indexes of the Institute for Scientific Information has declined steadily in the past decade. “Bibliometric studies show that sub-Saharan Africa’s share of world scientific papers declined from 1% in 1987 to 0.7% in 1996.” Countries in the south have performed worse than those in the north, as their research infrastructure, libraries and funding have deteriorated.
But South Africa is the biggest and most productive producer of scientific output in the area. It dominates the scientific research production by producing on average 80% of all output for the period 1990 to 2007.
Researchers say interviews reveal huge teaching loads, lack of research interest in many institutions and a general lack of funding for the average scientist. The development of human capital for science and technology is one of the biggest challenges. “Nearly a quarter of respondents from SADC countries other than South Africa indicated that they are considering moving to another country, [which] is yet another indication of the pervasiveness of the brain drain in the region.”
The researchers recommend that the decline in scientific research be reversed and that Sarua considers practical ways to bring home to key stakeholders the role and value of public science and universities in the region.
Kotecha says these studies provide a foundation “for a fresh appraisal” of how higher education can play its role in the development of the SADC region and surfaces the data required to revitalise planning and funding of this critical sector.
To access the publication go to: www.sarua.org