Role of Universities in regional integration

In 1960s and 1970s East African Universities were instrumental in breeding political activists who contributed to the end of white rulers in Southern African countries with University of Dar es-salaam being the centerpiece of such activities. The beehive of political activism conveyor belt churned the likes of the late former Democratic Republic of Congo President Laurent Desire Kabila, Uganda President Yoweri Museveni, the late John Garanga who founded Sudan People’s Liberation Army in early 1980s to fight for the annexing of Christian south from Muslims dominated north, current Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete,Asha Rose Migiro,current Tanzania Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda,immediate former East African Community secretary general Juma Mwapachu, current Bank of Uganda governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, outspoken Tanzania foreign affairs minister Benard Member, Kenya’s head of supreme court and first chief justice under the country’s new constitution dispensation Willy Munyoki Mutunga, education expert William Daniel Sabaya and economic management expert James Serufusa among others who served as the vanguard for pushing colonial and oppressive rulers out of the continent. Full of confidence and excitement and a newly found belief that they could change their continent with the power of knowledge, graduates from University of Dar es-Salaam continued took aim at corrupt and inept leadership and that is what led the current Ugandan President to lead a group of young and well educated youths to fight against the rogue regimes that ruled Uganda after independence.

Today, more than three decades later, the scene is strikingly different and Universities across the East African countries of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania have turned their attention to economic matters. Some are not amused that current crop of students seem uninterested and are struck by the lack of interest by students in anything to do with politics. Instead of engaging in debates about democracy or mobilize for a political cause, students at the three countries universities prefer to think about their job prospects and their futures economically. And when students do talk about economic and possibilities for job or business success, most students make cynical remarks and pessimism, not dreams for a better future with East African Community. In many ways, the East African Universities student economics is reminiscent of the tumultuous 1930s when Cambridge and Oxford universities in United Kingdom had become a hotbed of public protest with John Maynard Keynes being the key architect of economic theory that helped UK and Europe to come out of the great economic depression of 1930s. In United States of America, students found common cause because of a deeply ingrained belief that the great depression was unequivocally wrong and that the only honorable policy was one of reforming the financial industry starting with Wall Street and Federal Reserve policies.

In East Africa, there is an emerging obsession with overturning the old economic order, manifesting itself in the top universities like the region’s top Universities like Makerere, Nairobi, Kenyatta, and Dar es-Salaam with private Universities not being left behind as well. Students are taking the radical views about economic management in the region and what the regional integration should accomplish and achieve in the mid and long term. In the midst of high inflation and deepening structural unemployment with no apparent fix in sight, the youth involvement in economy and social causes have been sidelined yet the region has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. I would be wrong to claim that economic concerns are the only reason for which students decided to spending hours debating the regional integration and economic benefits expected to commoners in East Africa and not the current scenario where only a few businessmen and women are scooping the honey. Having extensively read about the original East African Community in 1977 and the new regional economic bloc that has led to unprecedented legislature in respective countries parliaments to align local laws with the spirit of East African Community laws, equal opportunities for each country and irrespective of class standing in the society is what economic student activists at their campuses are working hard to accomplish. With having achieved less, most students feel that they do not have battles left to fight for like sound economic management, prioritizing of the right economic development projects.

Over time, regional integration hopes have been replaced by a bitter realization that the current economic policies guiding the region have no capacity to create enough jobs for hundreds of thousands of youths graduating from East African universities. A student from University of Makerere recently told me on email that students in the East African region have had more than their fair share of disappointment and are alienated from EAC economic activities. He also lamented that Universities in the region are no longer hotbeds of economic reformist sentiment and rather, they have become, for the most part, sex ghettos. In any sound economic country, universities are the breeding ground for a future intellectual society and they play a crucial role in challenging conventions and fostering public debates about economic, political and social issues. Professors and students in East African Universities need to recognize that important debates like regional economic integration await them. While East AfricanCommunity is here to stay as Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete said afew weeks back,most people in East African region are wondering what economic benefits and prosperity are on the way.

Is it just the new bloc to benefit a few or is it something bigger for everyone? Some think tank groups and economic organizations have been recognized East African students’ feelings of estrangement with regional integration, especially on issues related to economic management of public funds. Given this state of affairs inside East African universities need to create a healthier economic and regional integration atmosphere on campuses and individual governments, scholars and educators should support them in shaping the future of East African Community. All stakeholders in the region can play an important role, as well, by creating a vibrant atmosphere for more diverse student economic activities and stimulate intellectual debates on regional integration issues, hence removing the monopoly held by few selfish groups and parties that have so far been the drivers of the East African Community. If the East African universities students can achieve this, then it would prove to be an equal recognition and fitting respect for the sacrifices made by the students of 1960s and 1970s some of whom are presidents and senior policy makers, who, in the end, have made democracy and rule of law possible for East, central and Southern African countries.