Higher education is about knowledge and learning. Despite how simple this sounds, contestation remains within the university sector and beyond about what knowledge is valued by universities and how much space and freedom staff and students have to learn from it.
Over 30 years ago, Sandra Harding drew attention to the negative societal consequences of creating a knowledge system based on the perspectives of the lives of the dominant groups, writing from a feminist perspective. More recently, Achille Mbembe has made the case for decolonising knowledge systems, stating that “the age of innocence and complacency is over”. Considering the social responsibility of the higher education sector, a number of academics have advocated for the co-creation of new knowledge through partnerships between universities and communities as a means to address societal challenges. This work is highlighted by the UNESCO Chair in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education.
Raewyn Connell has explored the tension between the academic curriculum and the knowledge formation it relies on. The former is usually orderly and closed, while the latter is often less well defined and constantly shifting. To move forward, those working in higher education will have to break with the model of pre-determined knowledge, which also means breaking with the pedagogy that is most familiar in universities. Reflecting on professional and personal biases and preferences in research, Robert Chambers has argued that biases exist towards the interests of the powerful, rich elite, and against the interest of the powerless, poor and those of low status. We can observe biases towards readily researchable, accessible and predictable knowledge, and biases against knowledge which is difficult to research, inaccessible and unpredictable. In higher education institutions, convenient and comfortable knowledge often trumps inconvenience and uncomfortable knowledge. Without a change to the existing power structures and hierarchies, knowledge and learning relating to marginalised groups will continue to be stifled.
Learning for development
Inspired by the ideas of Paulo Freire, academics Emmy Rugut and Ahmed Osman argue learning begins with action and is then shaped by reflection, which gives rise to further action. As such, learning must be viewed as a process that enhances the capacity of the learner to act in the world and change it. The themes of knowledge and learning also have central roles in working towards development and achieving ‘good change‘. Building on this, Hilary Standing and Peter Taylor have discussed the importance of using knowledge to understand knowledge. They argue that to build bridges between the local and the global (which is often a key aim of institutes, educators, and researchers engaged in development studies) a broader view of knowledge and information production, sharing and use is needed.
A case study from Mozambique
A newly published paper in the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement seeks to explore what this broader view of knowledge and learning might look like in practice. Drawing on the experiences of Lúrio University in Mozambique, it argues that approaches involving both global and local knowledge present an opportunity to improve the process of learning and teaching in higher education.
As with many universities, Lúrio has both international partnerships and a community-university programme. In a bid to internationalise, Lúrio joined the Consortium of New Southern African Medical Schools (CONSAMS). This partnership aims for the universities to support each other through sharing of knowledge, faculty, resources, and innovative approaches. Its goal is to promote capacity building through training programmes both within and across subjects, that operate at an international level. Lúrio also has an established community engagement program called One Student One Family, which involves faculty members and students interacting with families living in neighbourhoods surrounding the university – the majority of whom are living in extreme conditions of multidimensional poverty. Interaction between students, staff and local communities results in multidirectional flows of knowledge. Students and staff learn about people’s lived realities at a grassroots level, while also providing a service to the community.
Complimentary knowledge systems
In the higher education literature, international partnerships and a community-university programmes are often regarded as distinct from each other and dichotomous with the former relating to global knowledge and the latter relating to local or ‘grassroots’ knowledge. As a relatively new university (opened in 2007), Lúrio has successfully navigated the treacherous divide between these two camps, showing the two types of approaches do not need to compete with each other, and if anything can be complimentary. For example, Lúrio has been able to share with international partners grassroots knowledge relating to public health gained from the One Student One Family program. Namibia School of Medicine has reciprocated, shared learnings from their university–community program in which students undertake rural placements to facilitate context specific understandings of the socioeconomic and cultural determinants of health.
The intersection of the global and local approaches can present universities with an opportunity to improve the process of learning and teaching. Accepting that both “high level” knowledge associated with international partnerships and “grassroots” knowledge associated with community-based engagements are of value to develop curricula and improve pedagogies, synergetic and much improved higher education systems can be achieved.
Whose knowledge counts?
If higher education is going to use knowledge and learning to address some of the pressing global challenges, university staff and students must be encouraged to and question whose knowledge counts. Biases that determine which types of knowledge are traditionally prioritised within higher education must be challenged. Different approaches to knowledge development must be valued, funded and given space to flourish.
Stephen Thompson is a Research Fellow at IDS. Joel Bambamba is a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Optometry at Lúrio University
