Bulletin Number Two 1983

persistently, in three main areas — Britain, America and the developing world itself. Britain sensed the need to expand its own university system, to relate it more closely to national planning, to emphasize technology and science and to design a new form of university development which would encourage experimentation and flexibility through freedom from any tutelage from an established university. These attitudes in Britain were reinforced by the refreshing changes introduced by the University of Sussex, of which Lord Fulton, Chairman of your founding Commission, was Vice-Chancellor, and by the elevation of certain colleges of technology to university status. In America active interest in African higher education at last emerged, offering in the 1960s real prospects of substantial financial support, but it was accompanied by a growing belief that the philosophy of the American land-grant colleges with their community orientation might well be more relevant to conditions and needs in developing countries than the Asquith concept of small high-quality universities. In the developing world itself increasing impatience had been felt, especially in West Africa, at the slow rate of localization and the demand had become vehement for changes in the university system to permit the output of many more graduates. There were pleas, precise or vague, for more universities to satisfy national, communal, regional or ethnic aspirations. Moreover, the cost of university education was proving such a burden that questions began to be asked whether some less expensive form of university ought not to be contemplated. Such were the attitudes which in 1962 helped to encourage in Britain a sympathetic attitude to new university initiatives overseas including your own in Hong Kong. New Urgency, New Approach These several trends came to a head as political independence dawned in Africa. There was a new urgency then about national development; economic progress rather than the struggle for independence became the political priority and with it a realization of the need to produce agriculturalists, geologists, engineers etc. who could take the lead in exploiting the country's resources. Demand thus grew for a more utilitarian approach to university education, more rapid growth of enrolment and greater diversity. Universities would have to become instruments of development, agents of change, so went the topical slogan. Meeting Social Needs: Unconventional University Patterns The first example of this new approach was the University of Nigeria, which envisaged nineteen areas of study not hitherto offered in a university in Nigeria, several of which subjects would have been frowned upon at that time in most British academic circles. Nine other universities followed, some of them converted from colleges performing a role similar to polytechnics. One of these, Ahmadu Bello University in Northern Nigeria, well illustrates the determination to diversify and reach out in service to the community. Besides eleven faculties including Agriculture, Engineering, Architecture, Veterinary Science and Medicine, it comprised a School of Basic Studies (working to increase the flow of students eligible for admission to degree courses), an Institute of Agricultural Research and Special Services formed by absorbing the major government agricultural research organization, an Institute of Administration providing civil service and local government training at various levels, an Institute of Health operating several general and rural hospitals and training various categories of paramedical and auxiliary staff, and an Institute of Education incorporating two advanced teacher training colleges. As you will see, the University became an enormous undertaking, involving active participation in extension programmes, in-service training, applied research, middle-level training and health care. Gradually the success of this second group of universities created in the early 1960s encouraged the growth of less conventional university patterns to meet the needs of smaller and poorer countries. The University of Malawi, created in 1964, for example, comprised five constituent colleges together comprehending the complete post-secondary system of the country, including its polytechnic. It had many more students working at sub-degree than degree level since that distribution represented the country's manpower requirements. Again, the University of Mauritius, founded in 1965 ， was designed so as to meet the key features of the development crisis facing Mauritius — namely, a growth in population which could not be absorbed in agricultural employment. Government policy was directed towards industrialization supplemented by improved agricultural productivity but an analysis of training undertaken by Mauritians abroad showed that far too few were being trained at the right level and in the right subjects needed for such development. So it came about that the University of Mauritius was created with only three schools — Administration, Agriculture and Industrial Technology —and, rather later, an associated Institute of Education. There was, as you will notice, no Faculty of Arts or Science in the accustomed pattern. Further, much of its effort was taken up with specialist in-service courses at sub- ACADEMIC/CULTURAL EVENTS 19