of West African States (ECOWAS)

Educational Research and Reviews Vol. 4 (12), pp. 634-641, December, 2009 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/ERR ISSN 1990-3839 © 2009 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Higher education as an emerging strategy for actualising the vision 2020 of the economic community of West African States (ECOWAS) Idowu Biao Department of Adult and Continuing Education, University of Calabar, Nigeria. E-mail: idowubao@yahoo.com. Tel: 08056339065. Accepted 17 November, 2009 The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has just rolled out a document spelling out five major social, economic and environmental goals it wishes to achieve by 2020. These goals are lofty indeed but they can be achieved only with reliance on not only an enlightened citizenry but on 40% of the population that should have received university training. Consequently, university education within the sub-region is to be reappraised with the view to positioning West Africa for the actualisation of the vision. The task of revitalising university education within the countries making up ECOWAS will no more be a difficult one because, the World Bank and major development partners in the world, having discouraged for many years African leaders from embarking on a development of a higher education structure, have just affirmed their commitment to helping Africa develop a virile and relevant higher education system. Although Africa and West Africa have now been assured of the support of international development partners, finance and cost of university education would still remain a challenge for some time to come; four ways of minimising the effects of this financial challenge on the actualisation of ECOWAS vision 2020 should come through 1.) the acceptance of international development partners to supply ECOWAS countries with initial technological infrastructure that will reduce university education cost 2.) The development of a strong distance education network 3.) raising the number of teaching contact periods per academic staff and 4.) through exploiting all available cheap sources of electric energy for the purpose of ensuring steady and expanding supply of this energy. Key words: Higher education, university education, ECOWAS vision 2020, actualisation strategy. INTRODUCTION On May 28, 1975, fifteen Heads of government signed the Treaty formally establishing the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); from inception, the focus of ECOWAS has been economic development through a process of collective and integrated management of existing resources within the countries of the sub-region. This community occupies a land area of more than 5 million square kilometres and it was inhabited in 2008 by 290 million people; about 50% of its population is aged less than 20 years and a little more than half of this population is made up of women; three international languages (English, French and Portuguese) are spoken within the community in addition to six widely spoken African languages such as Hausa, Fulfulde, Mandingo, Wolof, Yoruba and Ewe (ECOWAS, 2009); more than 60% of the wealth available within the ECOWAS spatial entity is generated within the informal sector (Mannak, 2008) while West Africa is one of the African sub-regions contributing its own to the brain drain syndrome in favour of Europe, America and other parts of Africa (Lehmann, 2008; Pendleton, 2008). These statistics suggest first that, apart from occupying a vast land area, the community holds a huge population which accounts for about 5% of the world population and for more than 40% of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa (ECOWAS, 2009); secondly, the statistics suggest that West Africa holds one of the youngest populations in the world; thirdly, with the ratio of women to men being almost 1 - 1, procreation of human beings through the Biao natural process (as opposed to medically manipulated processes) is assured over an appreciable long time to come; fourthly, the fact that the informal sector of the economy contributes such an important proportion to the sub-regional wealth suggests that West Africans are inherently as hard working as self-reliant; fifthly, if this sub-region contributes so many brains to the development of other parts of the world, it is to be deduced that it is an intellectually active, productive and therefore viable sub-region. All these indicators point to the fact that the West African sub-region is an asset to the world and that the establishment of ECOWAS is a laudable strategy for releasing and developing the positive human and material resource energies that abound within the West African borders. This is why the foresight, doggedness and abiding faith of the sub-regional leaders which spured on and enabled them to keep the spirit of ECOWAS alive all these three and a half decades, are saluted and praised. ECOWAS has not been without its setbacks and difficult times; however, each time they arose, these challenges have been met with equal astute restrategising approaches; for example, in 1979, the Treaty of the community was amended to make it more responsive to the new realities that unveiled themselves at the time; in July, 1993, ECOWAS Treaty was again revised this time for the purpose of providing for the establishment of an economic and monetary union and for the purpose of deepening political cooperation among member states; equally, ECOWAS had had to grapple with the problems generated by military coup d’etats, political assassinnations, national civil wars and distortion of national Constitutions by pseudo-democratic leaders or dictators (Chambas, 2009). Also daunting issues related to literacy, gender, health care delivery and poverty were among the concerns that preoccupied the community (Biao, 2009). All these issues, instead of serving as lubricants towards the actualisation of the goal of ECOWAS, served more as distraction and impediments to the goal of economic and political emancipation and integration of the West African sub-region. Consequently, although some modest achievements have been recorded towards actualising ECOWAS main objective, about half of the fifteen member states among which are Cote d’Ivoire, Niger, Guinea, Mali, Togo, Nigeria and Guinea Bisau are currently adjudged to be performing below average level as it concerns their social, political and/or economic wellbeing. Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas, President of ECOWAS admitted this much in his 2008 Presidential address when he said: For more than thirty years, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has led this regional approach to economic develop- 635 ment, and there are important regional initiatives for achieving market, monetary, physical, production and political integration. While some progress has been recorded, it is clear that not only does West Africa remain poor and undeveloped, but regional integration is not at the centre of the national development agenda; the potential of regionalism has not been properly explored and utilized. The development of the region requires much more attention and effort than has been forthcoming in the past. (http://www.ecowasvision, 2009). Consequent upon the aforementioned poor performance of ECOWAS, the need for going back to the drawing table for the purpose of restrategising was made pressing and unavoidable. A document has therefore been produced which defines a refocused vision for ECOWAS; this document which outlines five focal areas as new directions to be followed was issued in March 2009. ECOWAS VISION DOCUMENT The vision of ECOWAS from now on shall be guided by issues regarding governance, infrastructure, private sector, women, children and youth and natural resource and environment. Governance All efforts are to be deployed to progressively install within the sub-region, a type of responsible governance that will be not only transparent and accountable but one that will show respect for human rights and will encourage participatory approach to leadership. Infrastructure The development of socio-economic infrastructures shall be guided by the concepts of cost-effectiveness and reliability. Consequently, future development of physical and socio-economic infrastructures shall draw on expertise available throughout the sub-region and the implementation approach of such projects shall be integrative. Private sector Priority shall be given to the establishment of a single sub-regional market within the framework of which shall be promoted a strong spirit of private-public partnership. Women, children and youths: ECOWAS shall establish 636 Educ. Res. Rev. a socially cohesive society within which women, children and youths who are known to be most vulnerable parts of society, shall be developed and empowered. Utilisation of the environment Available land within the sub-region shall be first put to the service of a virile agro-industrial enterprise; secondly, other extractive and economic activities shall be conducted in an environmental responsible manner. THE THESIS The thesis here is that first and foremost, none of the aspects of this vision can be accomplished without some form of education; secondly, only a high and qualitative enough type of education may aid the actualisation of the 5 point vision as laid out in the ECOWAS vision document. It has been established that an enlightened citizenry would naturally facilitate and promote smooth governance (Freire, 1970; Nyerere, 1976; Ouane, 2006; Kemerling, 2002; Okedara, 1981; Smith, 1965;) as long as the leadership itself is not corrupt. In other words, a fairly literate citizenry is the basis of any successful governance; literacy and all other types of education that may qualify to be basic enough to form the basis for a fairly enlightened or literate society would readily fall within the concept of basic education. However, in order to put in place the sophisticated infrastructural facility and model advocated by the vision document and in order to render functional a sub-regional market within which the new and not too easy to grasp concept of private-public partnership is to operate and in order to use the environment as intelligently as it is suggested by the vision document, an ECOWAS citizenry equipped with something more than basic education is needed. For the vision to be successfully implemented, an important segment of the community’s citizens would need to acquire higher education. WHAT IS HIGHER EDUCATION? Higher education is equally known as tertiary level education; it is the third level of education after primary and secondary school levels of education; it is therefore education obtained after the secondary level of education; it is a prized type of education for all nations as high level manpower which forms the bedrock of robust and successful economies is obtained from higher education. Higher education is obtainable in such institutions as colleges, technical training institutes, community colleges, nursing schools, research laboratories, centres of excellence, distance learning centres, universities, etc. (World Bank, 2009). Of all higher education institutions, universities are the most sophisticated because they attract or at least, they are expected to attract the largest number of highest level of academicians and their curricula are expected to stretch and develop the human brain to the confines of excellent functioning. The university is an institution designed to accept intellectually above average learners with the view to preparing them for the task of offering the most intellectually and mentally demanding services to society. Examples of such intellectually demanding services are those that would facilitate the establishment of “ An integrated system of modern socio-economic infrastructural networks operated by a large regional pool of worldclass human capital that makes efficient, reliable and cost-effective services accessible to all Community citizens and business enterprises” (ECOWAS vision document P.10); other examples of such mentally demanding services are the ones that can develop the moral, legal and practical frames through which women, children and youths may be functionally included within society and through which the current ECOWAS environment may be used intelligently and through which a large yet to be made literate West African population may be brought to operationalise the concept of privatepublic partnership. In other words, if the ECOWAS vision 2020 must succeed, it must be made operational within an environment which guarantees its proper take-off, its smooth implementation and the chances of its enhanced continuity. That environment is one in which the subregion is able to equip about 40% of its citizenry with university education. The suggestion of forty percent as threshold level follows from Adams Smith’s (1965) suggestion that a 40% literacy rate would bring a society to economic development threshold. This theory has not been disproved outrightly, although a few factors such as poor governance, absence of appropriate economic infrastructure and inability to link literacy skills to specific economic activities have been identified as impediments to economic development even when a society hits 40% literacy rate (Blaug, 2000). While Smith discussed literacy and basic education, this theory is here applied to university education because university education is the level of education that best suits the execution of the tasks prescribed by the ECOWAS vision 2020. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION IN AFRICA OF UNIVERSITY As is the case in the whole of Africa, university education in West Africa is young. Tilak (2009) states that in 1960, the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa had about 6 universities with a population of about 21 thousand students. The need for university education was made manifest in Biao Africa in the 1970s and when they were established, they came guided with the spirit of the celebrated British Education Policy “Small is Best”. Consequently, throughout Africa, including Francophone Africa, the first universities came in very few numbers and in small sizes. There is a background that accounts for this situation; between 1957 and 1965, when almost all African nations attained political independence, African leaders and elites were of the opinion that majority of the citizens of the newly independent countries were illiterate and in the main unschooled; additionally, the theory eventually made popular by Adams Smith (1965) that a 40 percent literacy rate of a population would eventually lead a society to the threshold of economic development was accepted by both leaders and elites of the time. Consequently, all newly independent African countries sought all the help they could secure from within and from without to send more than half of their youths to such schools that will quickly raise literacy levels across the continent. In some countries, adult and non-formal education aimed at equipping adults with literacy skills were also added to the formal education efforts at raising literacy rates across the continent. So frantic and so serious was this business taken, that it did yield tremendous results after about two decades. World Bank (1988:12-13) submits that between 1960 and 1983, Sub-Saharan Africa recorded phenomenal growth in education in general and in primary education in particular; for example, students enrolment at all levels of education quintupled; primary school enrolment rose from about 12 million in 1960 to about 51 million in 1983; the number of primary schools equally increased from 73,000 to 162,000 and the number of primary school teachers from 310,000 to more than 1.3 million during the same period; as the number of secondary schools, increased too, the number of teachers recruited for secondary school education increased eightfold. Although by the 1980s, literacy rates have been raised across the nations of Africa including those of West Africa, new challenges had arisen which had come to dampen the expectations of both African rulers and citizens; first, by mid-1980s, a wave of economic recession swept through the continent which diminished the impact of the economic gains recorded during the first two and a half decades of political independence; secondly, although African leaders had originally mobilized their zeal and efforts at developing the primary and secondary levels of education with the intention of achieving an appreciable level of literacy rate in the first years of political independence, these leaders had begun expressing their desire to develop the tertiary level of education from the 1970s; from this period on, it was thought by them that the gains being recorded at the primary and secondary school levels of education could be consolidated with the establishment of universities; unfortunately, their desire to get assistance and support for the establishment of universities was politely turned 637 down for years by international development partners and by the World Bank. This attitude of these international agencies and governments and the World Bank was not without its rationale. Known perhaps to a few people in Africa at the time, all international development partners and the World Bank had had access to study results which did not encourage the establishment of universities in developing countries because a) estimated rates of return on primary and secondary education have been found to be higher than those on tertiary education b) indeed a declining rate of return by increasing levels of education has been found c) public expenditure per student as a percentage of GDP was found to be higher in the case of higher education student than in the case of primary and secondary school students (Psacharopoulos, 1980; Thompson, 1983; Friedman and Friedman, 1980); in fact it was earlier on suggested that instead of bringing any positive return at all, higher education was capable of causing political instability and lead to social unrest in developing countries. Consequently, having accepted the positions as enunciated earlier, the World Bank which never was interested in funding higher education in developing countries, for decades, clearly showed its lack of interest in this activity. For example, between 1985 and 1989, the World Bank funded higher education in developing countries to the tune of 17 percent of its worldwide education sector spending while between 1995 and 1999, funding by the World Bank had climbed down to 7% (Bloom, Canning and Chan, 2005). The damage caused to the psyche of African leaders and citizens by the acceptance of the view that higher education yields only low social and economic returns or outrightly leads to social unrest is grave and subsists till nowadays. For example, in many African countries, military juntas that ruled during the first four decades of political independence relied on those beliefs to stifle the growth of higher education in general and that of universities in particular and to starve higher education lecturers through the payment of unrealistic and very low wages. A number of African universities continue to be sporadically shut down and open as a result of industrial actions by lecturers and some traditional institutions in parts of West Africa, wishing to preserve what they see as social cohesiveness in their domain, still try to obstruct the development of higher education. Yet, evidences exist that prove the opposite of what has been canvassed these many years in respect of higher education. For instance, it has been established that higher education does produce private and public benefits; the private benefits include better employment prospects, higher salaries and greater ability to save and invest; all these gained abilities would in their turn lead to better health and improved quality of life. The public benefits enable higher education graduates to use the Internet and other technologies for the purpose of improv- 638 Educ. Res. Rev. ing services rendered to society and for the purpose of linking up with knowledge economy; addi-tionally, evidence has been produced to the effect that declining rate of return estimates by levels of education is not a reality in Sub-Saharan Africa (Tilak, 2009; Bloom et al, 2005). However, something more than generating evidences about the positive returns of higher education to SubSaharan Africa is needed to improve the current performance of higher education in general and of university in particular in Africa and in West Africa; the World Bank and international development partners need to have a rethink of their lukewarm attitude towards higher education on the continent; they need to publicly and sincerely accept to partner with the African continent in its bid to develop higher education. This prayer was answered recently. Those who therefore have been struggling all these years to see to it that Africa gets help in developing its higher education sector, have at last witnessed the consummation of their age old wish and they have expressed their joy. It is because of this event that “higher education” was described here as “an emerging strategy” for actualising ECOWAS vision 2020. THE GREAT EVENT Some have referred to this great event as “an act of liberation, affirmation and consolidation” (Teferra, August 2009); others have christened it “a moment for mobilising regional capacity for initiative” (AAU, 2009); yet others have heralded it as a dream come true (Tilak, 2009). This great event was the World Conference on Higher Education (WCHE) that held in Paris from July 5 - 8, 2009. It was a ground breaking event that attracted more than 1000 participants from more than 150 countries; the participants were made up of university rectors, researchers, students, business leaders, ministers, Heads of state and development partners. The WCHE “called on governments to increase investment in higher education, encourage diversity and strengthen regional cooperation to serve societal needs. Further, the final communiqué noted that “At no time in history has it been more important to invest in higher education as a major force in building an inclusive and diverse knowledge society and to advance research, innovation and creativity,” and stressed that “higher education must pursue the goals of equity, relevance and quality simultaneously.” (Teferra, 2009:1). The WCHE 2009 has therefore come and gone and a battle has been won in the great war for promoting higher education in Africa. Then Quo vadis? Before we may correctly determine the next steps to take, it is proper to examine the current true state and the many sides of university education within the ECOWAS spatial environment. CURRENT STATE OF UNIVERSITY WITHIN THE ECOWAS SPACE EDUCATION Tilak (2009) had posited that the gross enrolment ratio in higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa is currently barely six percent; he further submitted that these ratios for Nigeria, Cape Verde and Senegal are 10, 9 and 8% respectively. If one conceded 3% enrolment ratio for all other institutions within the higher education bracket, apart from universities, the following will be the picture of current and required populations of students in universities located within ECOWAS space when the 40% enrollment ratio earlier recommended is applied. Table 1 shows that by 2008, there existed 147 universities (with Nigeria housing 102 of them) in all the 15 countries of ECOWAS for 290 million people. These universities include government and private universities. Table 1 also shows that although 60% of ECOWAS countries had a population equal or superior to 10 million inhabitants, none of the countries, except Nigeria, had up to one million students in the university in 2008. The table equally shows that about 15 million students or about 5% of the population of ECOWAS were university students in 2008. If 40% of the population was registered as university students in 2008, then 116 million students would have been in the universities; therefore about 100 million expected students or 34.5% of the ECOWAS population that ought to have been in the university, were outside the universities in 2008. Enrolment is not the only issue in West African university education; availability and use of technologies and gender issues also avail themselves for discussion. Technologies Technologies are both equipment and strategies of seeking and obtaining knowledge and information. They are also means of breaking down the barriers of space and time between two or multiple entities. Apart from turning the world into a global village whereby every nook and cranny of the world can be reached almost instantaneously, technologies have proven to be quite useful in higher education delivery. For example, technologies have helped to cut down on the cost and duration for doing research; they have also made possible the holding of many more academic meetings and conferences than would have been possible without them. Additionally, it has been proved that technologies have come to lower considerably tuition and cost of study generally. By breaking down barriers of time and space, technologies both increase access to education and reduce time, physical energy and financial costs individual learners would have otherwise borne in the pursuit of tertiary education. Here lies the great benefit of open and distance education which the introduction of technologies Biao 639 Table 1. Current and required populations of students in universities located within ECOWAS territory. S/N Countries 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. Benin Republic Burkina Faso Cape Verde Cote d’Ivoire Gambia Ghana Guinea Bissau Guinea Liberia Mali Niger Nigeria Senegal Sierra Leone Togo Number of universities National Populations in millions 3 1 1 6 1 9 0 3 9 2 2 102 3 3 2 147 9.5 15 1 19 2 24 1.5 11 4.5 12.5 13 150 13.5 6.5 7 290 Populations of Students in millions in universities as at 2008 using 3%-7% enrolment ratio 0.285 0.45 0.06 0.57 0.06 0.72 0.045 0.33 0.135 0.375 0.39 10.5 0.675 0.195 0.21 14.995 Populations of Students in millions that ought to be in universities as at 2008 using 40% Enrolment ratio 3.8 6 0.4 7.6 0.8 9.6 0.6 4.4 1.8 5 5.2 60 5.4 2.6 2.8 116 Difference between populations of students that ought to be and the ones in universities as at 2008 3.515 5.55 .34 7.03 0.74 8.88 0.555 4.07 1.665 4.625 4.81 49.5 4.725 2.405 2.59 101 Sources: a) universities: i) Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) 2008 ii) http://www.rhodesuniversity.org 2008 b) Populations i)http://www.ecowascommission 2008 estimates ii) http://en.wikipedia.org 2008 estimates into tertiary education will promote in the sub-region. Through open and distance education, far higher numbers of persons that access education through formal school based strategies are usually able to obtain education. Unfortunately, half the population of ECOWAS lives in a zone (Nigeria) where electricity, the live wire of technologies, is a very rare commodity. Consequently, apart from not possessing enough computers, most universities, at least in Nigeria, are yet to have access and to use technologies profitably for the purpose of promoting university education. Gender issues Women remain under-represented within the African and West African university system both at the student and teaching levels (Okebukola, 2004; UIS Fact Sheet, 2009). Yet, for the sake of equity and special interests, women need to be involved in the development of university education within the sub-region. Teaching, research and community service are the three missions known to the university the world over. Besides student enrolment, technologies and gender issues, these three missions have equally been impacted by the difficult situation experienced in universities. Teaching in West African universities Those that may be considered first generation lecturers in universities, were all trained outside the shores of Africa between the 1950s and end of the 1970s; they have now all retired and left the university system; however, before they left, they supervised the training of a corps of second generation lecturers within an environment which although was not as good as the environment within which they trained, yet, that environment was fairly functional. By the end of the 1980s, when the training of the third generation of lecturers began, not only had the classrooms become uncomfortable for learning, laboratories and libraries had become virtually non-existent in most universities within the sub-region. The not too significant increase in students population overstretched the facilities which have not been significantly improved upon since the universities were put up in the 1960s or 1970s. Additionally, since teaching in these universities is 640 Educ. Res. Rev. currently carried out by specialists using only face to face method of teaching, a relatively large number of academic staff is needed to do the work; yet, in addition to the introduction of technologies, a further cost saving device could be the adjustment upward in a reasonable manner of the work hours of university lecturers with the view to ultimately reducing slightly the number of them that need to be hired; according to Tilak (2009), this strategy has been successfully tried out in some developing countries; it may therefore equally work in West Africa. Meanwhile, teaching continues in West African universities but under strenuous and difficult situations. Research A great deal of arm-chair research goes on in the universities since proof of some sort of research is needed before lecturers can be promoted across existing university ranks. Naturally where laboratories, supply of electricity and library services have been performing below average, not much research work can be expected. The situation could have been a little ameliorated if lecturers were sponsored for local and international conferences; the reality in many universities in the subregion is that lecturers are not able to be sponsored to a conference taking place in the next door town. The university wages which are no more than stipends are already too poor to enable the university lecturer sponsor himself to the least costly conference. It is therefore not surprising to learn that university research output is lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa (Teferra and Albach, 2004) starting from 2008, a number of West African governments have begun including in their annual budgets, provisions for financing mechanised farming; the irony has been that all this time and now, the faculties of Agriculture in the universities have demonstrated a lower knowledge about mechanised farming than the farming communities outside the universities. Who then is to teach who? One is aware of the Association of African Universities (AAU) “Mobilizing Regional Capacity Initiative -2009” programme which aims at building university staff capacity for the purpose of effective community service; this example is just a way of conscientising all stakeholders about the fact that universities in the sub-region have already lost some ground in some aspects of global knowledge in relation to civil and professional societies. The acknowledgement of this fact will eventually facilitate the drawing up of a realistic and effective capacity building programme for university staff. Another issue of concern is the difficulty foreseen in the attempt of the university to promote the tenets of democracy in a West African environment in which governments that sporadically fall fowl of democratic laws or which outrightly put in jeopardy the spirit of democracy are the main funders of universities; it is suspected that in an environment such as this, this aspect of the university community service may suffer a setback where a government of the day feels uncomfortable by the work of the university in this aspect. QUO VADIS Community service The major obstacle to the revitalization of higher education would be the cost associated to it. This is why a few suggestions concerning ways of circumventing such obstacle are given as follows: Community service is indulged in only minimally by lecturers because it is a very weak criterion in the process of promotion in West African universities. Since it is through carrying out community service that West African universities will prove their relevance, efforts are already a-foot to begin promoting aggressively this third mission of universities. Universities community service work is expected to promote the success of the Millennium Development Goals, especially in the areas of poverty reduction, democracy, health and gender. A serious knowledge deficiency exists at present at the level of lecturers which will prevent them from carrying out any beneficial community service in this globalised and knowledge-driven economy; a practical example of this handicap is the fact that the community outside West African universities may have overtaken the universities themselves in many areas; for example since 2006, Zimbabwean white farmers have been pioneering mechanised farming among farmers in parts of West Africa; 1.) ECOWAS, AAU, World Bank and other development partners should now begin to emphasise mass access and use of technologies in the delivery of university education in the sub-region. Development partners would need to make the initial sacrifice of donating to the subregion a first batch of these technologies in adequate quantity, knowing that this is a strategy for cutting down on the overall cost of university education. 2.) The establishment of new universities need not be contemplated nor does a major physical expansion of existing universities be undertaken in order to increase intake of students and learners in the universities; rather, distance education strategies should be prioritised which make possible mass access to university education. Adekambi (2008:16) has suggested that distance education supported by electronic medium has the potential for promoting mass higher education. 3.) The number of teaching contact periods of academic staff should be reviewed upward in a realistic manner in Biao order to reduce the number of staff to be hired without compromising quality. 4.) All countries in West Africa should begin to lay out a structure that would guarantee steady supply of electric energy and more importantly, a structure for steadily upgrading and increasing this supply through the exploitation of all available cheap sources of energy within the sub-region; some of these cheap sources include water, wind, gas and oil. The security for electric supply is imperative, since the need for this energy would keep growing with population growth and industrialisation. Conclusion That conference of hope, the World Conference on Higher Education 2009 is the reason this contribution and contributions similar to this have been made. Because that conference ever held, we can see higher education as a potential strategy or emerging strategy for resolving numerous social, economic and developmental problems in the sub-region. 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