Changing Trends in the Financing of Public Universities in Africa

This book analyses changing trends in the financing of public universities in Africa and its effects on university management and the provision of quality education. The book examines the development of universities from the well endowed colonial ones through being severely undermined by the economic crisis that faced African countries in the early 1970s to the challenges brought about by the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) of the 1980s which forced African governments to reduce their budgetary allocations to university education. This world-wide trend which was shaped by neo-liberalism that led to major changes in the management of higher education as well as innovations that resulted in competition for funding from a diversity of sources and have taken the form of a wide range of market behaviours, seem to have been poorly managed in many Sub-Saharan African countries thereby exacerbating issues of quality in higher education. Clearly written, this book is a timely addition to available literature on the topic and will be an invaluable reference material for students of education in universities and colleges, academicians, educational managers and policy makers.