Higher education has considerable potential for benefiting all segments of society, as evidenced by the renewal of interest in the Sustainable Development Goals. However, the relevance of higher education for the public good... [ view full abstract ]
Higher education has considerable potential for benefiting all segments of society, as evidenced by the renewal of interest in the Sustainable Development Goals. However, the relevance of higher education for the public good is contested and amenable to multiple interpretations. On the one hand, there are conceptions emerging from economics, defined as goods that are non-rivalrous and non-excludable, while on the other, there are more collectivist conceptions of public good in the singular, or ‘common good’, requiring deliberation and consensus-building. This paper focuses on two principal questions: first, to what extent are these conceptualisations contextual, that is to say, is there a distinctively African notion of the public good in higher education? Second, how can the public good benefits of higher education be measured? The paper is primarily theoretical, but draws on the early phases of a two-year multi-country research study in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. All four countries are experiencing the challenges of maintaining quality and relevance in the context of rapid expansion, as well as intense debates on the public role of a sector that is characterised by increasing marketisation. The paper proposes a prototype of an indicator of public good, derivable predominantly from publicly available datasets, and comprising elements relating to equity of access, relevance of taught courses, quality of learning, graduate destinations, research impact and community engagement. Finally, implications are drawn out for the adequacy and viability of such an indicator across the four African countries and Sub-Saharan African more broadly.
