Positioning Cameroon’s Universities into World-Class

Planks for Internationalisation and Recognition

By Ernest L. Molua

In the advent of smart globalisation and increasing challenge for resources, Cameroon’s institutions of higher learning are at cross-roads in accomplishing their mission as mills for productive manpower. While this challenge may be local, positioning Cameroon’s universities in the competitive world of manpower development requires that the universities go beyond local concerns; and begin to address the need of the global community, as a twin approach to promote recognition in the global market place of knowledge generators and in becoming world class universities.

As the University of Buea graduates its most recent batch of students, the worthiness of the diplomas received in the global market place will be judged inter-alia by the University’s name recognition and the productivity of the certificate holders. There are important parameters that would count in the perception of the quality of the education, amongst which is the extent of the internationalisation of the education received by the students and recognition of the personnel who dispensed that education. In our technology age, search engines provide a one-stop-shop, for whoever, to gauge the worthiness of institutions and instructors. The googled results are perceived as reliable indicators of the worthiness of the educating body and instructors, and the extent of their internationalisation.

Internationalisation is important, for whilst universities are by necessity rooted in a particular place and society, yet they must constantly seek to forge links across cultures, to broaden knowledge, and to meet varied responsibilities to society. This dispensation requires that the commitment to service of Cameroon’s students, instructors and researchers must be informed, challenged, and enthused by the links between international and local perspectives. This calls for an aggressive agenda to internationalise Cameroon’s universities, more especially its lone anglo-saxon University of Buea, by purposefully adopting an international dimension into the key functions of the institution. It means a deliberate transformation of how students are taught, the manner in which its teaching staff conduct research and learn from each other, and be of service to the local and global communities. Three planks would therefore guide the process of increased internationalisation and recognition of Cameroon’s Universities:

• Education: Teaching staff and students must be prepared to meet the challenges of an increasingly connected, but continually fragmented, world through exposure to the broadest possible knowledge in their areas of study. Part of that preparation must consist of an understanding of the responsibilities inherent in a more integrated world, along with the opportunities and challenges it presents. While university prepares students to be competent in diverse settings, by having the requisite understanding of subject areas, they must also uphold a deep respect for different cultures, approaches, and forms of knowledge and have an ability to integrate the two. This mission will require having Cameroonian students study side-by-side with foreign students who bring along with them new ideas and methods. This calls for allocating quota in the admission of foreign students, potential ambassadors who will brand Cameroon’s universities globally as they thread the market place with their diplomas. In the case of UB, building deliberately upon the University's anglo-saxon tradition, increased admission of international students would provide training to potential leaders from around the world, taking along with them from UB training that reflects a rigorous standard of excellence, a commitment to inquiry and a pursuit of innovation that markets the university beyond the foot of Mount Cameroon. 

• Research: Research in Cameroon’s universities must be collaborative, pursued through effective partnerships, which strengthen and keep alive existing cooperation agreements. This will require proactive research groups, frequent and reliable faculty level seminar presentations and allocating resources, no matter how minimal, to bring international research partners to the campus who would have to collaborate and present their research to staff and students. Frequent faculty seminars will be the avenue for this intellectual intercourse. Building on access to the students, faculty and alumni, such visiting researchers would not only expand their professional and personal horizons, but also contribute to a deepening of the international process within the university community. Their enriched curriculum vitae from a short-stay, would by no means brand Cameroon’ universities globally.

• Service: The University like its students must recognise the responsibilities it has to the community. Responsibilities to service do not end at the borders of Cameroon. The Universities must adopt deliberate measures to ensure that research finds its way back to the classroom and to the communities in which the research was carried out.

Meeting these obligations, in the years ahead, requires that managers of Cameroon’s universities act on different fronts: enhance the breadth and diversity of intellectual views in seminar rooms around campus; upgrade the knowledge bases in the classrooms; reinforce the cooperation process to provide staff and students with opportunities to study and engage in experiential learning outside of Cameroon and to bring what is learned outside of Cameroon to the classroom; build effective partnerships with communities close to the university and around the world; and provide opportunities for students and professionals from around the world to study and teach in our university and to share their knowledge to enrich lectures. With increased globalisation and unprecedented interconnection of the world into a global village, the University must be a global institution engaged in issues and roles that transcend borders and embrace diversity. This is a sine qua non for world class universities.© The Entrepreneur Newspaper 2009. All Rights Reserved

Dr Ernest L. Molua is a Lecturer in the Department of Economics and Management of the University of Buea. He is also the Chief of Service for National and International Cooperation of the University. He is currently on the US government-sponsored Fulbright Fellowship at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

Comments

[kamarad]

This is an interesting intellectual posting.
Please, keep it up, and let the flame
shine from shiny sea to the mountain
top, whether in Kumbo or in Awing,
from the grassfields to the old town.