In defence of the academe

Applied academic skills, critical thinking skills, mathematical literacy, inter personal skills, personal qualities, resource management, information use, communication skills, systems thinking, technology use, innovation, and ethical behaviour. You may add what we have forgotten. These are employability skills schools, and, especially universities, expect their students to attain, exhibit and demonstrate long after they graduate.

Universities create knowledge through research. They abstract, generalise or universalise the research findings into theories explaining how nature works today and is likely to work until information to the contrary emerges.

Through research, universities challenge what previously was considered the truth. Through research, universities have created curative and preventive drugs. If the world is healthier today, we must thank scientists, most of whom are also teachers in universities.

Not long ago, a postgraduate student at the Polytechnic, now Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (Mubas), developed an ultraviolet light box for treating pre-term babies. It was deployed at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre and a lot of babies were served and saved. They live today because of that university student’s research and innovation.

Another postgraduate student developed a mobile tool to monitor water levels in tanks. Today, that gadget has been adopted and is being used by Lilongwe Water Board, Blantyre Water Board, and others to monitor water levels in their reservoirs without going to do any physical check. Money saved. Time saved. Ujeni saved

The same Mubas came up with the treadle pump. The technology was taken up by a Makata-based company but the company was sold by the Bakili Muluzi regime to an Indian bidder before the technology could be multiplied. Today, the treadle pump is manufactured in India and sold to Africa, including Mubas, as a ‘made-in-India’ product.

Bunda College, now Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar), has done tremendous research on seed varieties, on the behaviour, reproduction, and feeding patterns fish, mostly tilapia (chambo and its many cousins).

If we have more disease resistant crops today, we must thank researchers at Luanar and the many research institutions in Malawi and their international partners.

The lawyers, magistrates, and justices that you see in the courts defending you, when you commit a crime and representing you when someone has committed a crime against you are almost all products of the Malawi university system.

Teachers of law and their students do gargantuan research; they compare laws from various jurisdictions to arrive at what we, Malawians, ought to know about justice. This early infusion into research in law school is reflected in arguments presented in the courts. If the universities did not produce lawyers, there would be no formal justice in the world.

The teachers that taught you and teach your children in secondary school and beyond are products of universities. You can see that the pattern of thinking of secondary and higher level teachers is much higher than an average Malawian who has not gone beyond primary school.

In short, universities are there to teach and empower the world with employability skills we listed at the outset.

There are there to research and generate knowledge, theories about nature. Universities are there to propose policies to governments and institutions on how the world could be a better place for humanity and the environment.

Malawians have contributed immensely to human progress. Witness the contributions made by Kuhes in the field of medicine and health. Witness the contributions made by Must, and Mubas in the field engineering. Witness the contributions of Mzuni in the field land economy and management and forestry. 

If you did not know, we will tell you that some of the best engineers in the world were students of Malawi’s universities. Landson Mhango and Cedrick Ngalande are among the best engineers the world has produced. Their work has been tried, tested and tasted.

To expect universities to be farmers because they teach agriculture is, to be very respectful, misplaced. If government and institutions have not picked up research findings liberally disseminated, hold them, not universities, responsible for our food quagmire.  

To expect universities to repair roads because they teach civil engineering is, to be mild, unintelligent.  To expect universities to provide drugs because they teach pharmacy science and chemistry is, to be honest, unwise.  Hold your Member of Parliament, individually,  and not universities, for prioritizing wrong things in parliament.

A journalistic proverb advises: thou shall not kill the messenger for carrying a message, depressing or pleasant.

Likewise, thus say we unto you, hic et nunc, don’t kill the academe for the world’s and our nation’s ills. Blame your policy implementers, your parliament, and your programme funders for not listening to the academe.