Education

The Founders of the new Lira University were lucky in the near virgin piece of land they got. All 600 acres of it, perched on low rolling hills with a magnificent view of the surrounding countryside. To the south six kilometers away is the town from which the university gets its name, the town they call the bicycle capital of the world.

In the aftermath of the awful tragedy that hit Northern Uganda, an idea took root in Lira. By 2010 it manifested itself as the Constituent College for Health Sciences of the well established and nearby Gulu University. Two years later it assumed shape as Lira University College. Knowing the facts on the ground the very idea of the College in the ruins that was Lira seemed at the time unrealistic.

In the early nineteen nineties a young artist came to the house where I lived in northern Nigeria on the Ahmadu Bello University campus. He grabbed a drawing pen and paper and within minutes had reproduced the exact replica of the Mona Lisa that adorned my wall. I taught creative writing and used the Mona Lisa as a kind of good luck charm to inspire me. The artist was five years old ...

The four years I spent at Makerere were its golden period. The College attracted outstanding scholars to its Faculty. A considerable amount of money poured in to strengthen its medical, agriculture and social science faculties. Many gifted graduate students from prestigious universities overseas came to work on their doctorates.

How can higher education in Africa become more relevant in the face of the challenges and opportunities Africa faces in the 21^st century? That is the theme of a conference planned for 2014 at Dakar Senegal. In the face of growing numbers of colleges and universities in Africa, organizers note, there has been a lot of focus on numbers and too little attention paid to quality, relevance and access.

Once seemingly on the threshold of a grand breakthrough African universities are sliding backwards. To the casual observer this may not be apparent. The occasional brand new edifice on campus, many often the result of donor money, the trim lawns college administrators have perfected the art of keeping, the fashion obsessed youths, book bags on their backs, smart phones in their palms, present the image of a normal campus.

Nile Journal brings to you this remarkable and revealing conversation in which a Lagos University student accused of flouting college regulations on dress code and threatened with expulsion takes the Faculty head on. The encounter left the head of department (HOD) reeling. We must admit his had to be the strangest college department in the world; the department of Dress Code

Society has come a long way in evolving elaborate systems and methods of gathering and processing information we need to shape our world and master our destiny. We have devised ways of passing on our hard earned experience, skills, knowledge and wisdom to the next generation and to generations yet unborn, so that society can continue and can progress. We take education of our youngsters fairly seriously.