What is the purpose of African Universities?

Keguro Macharia writes:

We are curious and, as the jua kali sector proves, we generate new innovative unheralded forms of knowledge all the time.As scholars such as Joyce Nyairo have shown, our most interesting forms of knowledge production and dissemination may not be happening within the universities.Kenya’s knowledge economy thrives and flourishes on matatu graffiti, on street corners, in community-based theatre productions.
But to say this is also to ask, then, about the role of our universities.If most of our knowledge is produced and disseminated elsewhere, what role do our universities have in the knowledge economy?
...We cannot continue to rely on that old, tired “I’m an African” bit so beloved of African participants in international conferences, who use that opening statement to disengage from the tough conceptual demands being placed on them.Locating ourselves is an ethical and political act. Disengaging from tough conceptual demands because of location is anti-intellectual...[continue reading]