University education is expanding across Africa. It is currently viewed by political decision makers as the ultimate precondition for economic development. In line with this belief everyone of the fifty odds African countries is devoting tremendous effort into establishing on its territory, sometimes, more than one University to cater for the education of its youth. Nowadays, this exertion is reaching deadlock. If the growth in demand for higher education were to keep pace with demography it would engulf the entire GDP of any single African
country. This is the financial background to the higher education crisis on the continent, stemming from the dearth of funding. To alleviate the ensuing sharp devaluation of higher education, the products of which are no longer enrolled in government jobs, especially, after the imposition of structural adjustment measures in the 1990s, African governments are now turning to international cooperation in higher education to fill in the gap not only in funding but also in quality education.
However, despite all this effort, development goals are still eluding the African countries. It is argued in this project that University education is not just about transferring knowledge and technology to individuals in a particular scientific field. But first and foremost about imparting values to the members of the middle class on whose shoulders lies the responsibility of developing the African continent. When the issue of values is overlooked University education simply churns out qualified individuals bearing an universal culture with no commitment to their native community. Viewed from this perspective, the present-day depletion of financial support to University education and impediment to international mobility of students and scholars could still be a welcome opportunity. Presumably, such circumstances would force upon African countries the alternative of pooling together their dwindling resources in order to establish pan-African universities.
