| dc.description.abstract | The debate around the roles of universities is not new. One of the debated issues relates to
who defines the role and priorities of universities. A number of authors (Ashby, 1964;
Yesufu, 1973; Court, 1980; Sherman, 1990; Saint, 1992; Ajayi, Goma & Johnson, 1996;
Lulat, 2003; Van Wyk & Higgs, 2007) have taken into account the colonial legacy when
approaching the topic of higher education establishment in post-colonial Africa.
What may seem clear is that universities have roles to play. Those roles are often stated in
higher education legislation, policy and plans, by universities themselves or even by their
stakeholders. Although studies on higher education in Mozambique (Chilundo et al., 2000;
Mário et al., 2003; Brito, 2003; Langa, 2006; Beverwijk, Goedegebuure & Huisman, 2008;
Cloete et al., 2011) have attempted to address post-colonial higher education in Mozambique,
none addresses, in depth, the purpose of establishment or the debates around the role of
universities. That is the gap this study has identified and intends to address by investigating
the way in which the roles of the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) were defined.
Taking into account the relationship between state, university, society and market, the roles
of the university are understood as both what universities are expected to do and what the
university perceives it should do. The university’s roles are located at both macro-level and
institutional level. At the macro-level, university’s roles are clearly outlined by state
legislation and policy on higher education (Cloete & Maassen, 2006: 10-12). At the
institutional level, however, the university’s roles are defined by the university itself and
relevant stakeholders (Clark, 1983: 140-145).
Apart from having located university’s roles at these two levels, a conceptual analytical
framework was drawn from the work of Clark (1983) and Cloete and Maassen (2006) to
analyse role formation using three model types: state control, market steering and academic
oligarchy.
The data collection, consisting of document collection and interviews, was undertaken from
December 2010 to May 2011. Documents, archival records, universities’ policies and
government policies on higher education in Mozambique were collected. Semi-structured
interviews were conducted with UEM and Ministry of Education staff. | en_US |
