Abstract:

The general debate around GATS and Higher Education throws up a number of interesting and important conceptual issues and developments relating to:

conceptual, ideological and philosophical issues within the GATS regime itself
1. Globalisation and the new world order
2. Regional integration and sovereignty
3. Higher education's role in national, regional and continental development
4. The implications of the knowledge economy
5. Internationalisation of higher education and the international dimension of higher education
6. 'Commodification/commercialisation' and unfair advantage and competition in this
process

But, before Africa engages in any debate about, or critique of, the GATS, Africa has to ask some fundamental questions about her collective conceptual, philosophical, ideological and pragmatic position within the current world order, if any collective position does or should exist. Such collective - even coherent - position should underpin our engagement (or disengagement?) with the GATS.  In a sense, we seek to identify the fundamental basis upon which Mihyo and others engage with conceptual issues and development perspectives brought about by the GATS. We should then match our collective position with our capacity to deliver, based on our relative strengths and comparative advantage. Our fervent hope is that once we have engaged even more dispassionately with the issues, Africa's response to the GATS and her solutions to conceptual and logistical problems/challenges brought about by the GATS will then have a better chance of success.

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Yeowart, Tessa; Mthembu, Thandwa (2004). Towards a strategic African engagement: conceptual, logistical and structural issues about GATS Presented at The Association of African Universities Workshop on the Implications of GATS for Higher Education in Africa, Accra, Ghana.