TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS OF LIS EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Library and Information Science LIS education andtraining in Africa, having the responsibility of providing qualified staff for thelibrary and information professions, is currently chall

TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS OF LIS EDUCATION AND

TRAINING IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Omwoyo Bosire Onyancha & Mabel K Minishi-Majanja

The changing patterns of social-economic interaction in society often means thatprofessions need to re-examine their premise and re-orientate towards currenttrends and perspectives Library and Information Science (LIS) education andtraining in Africa, having the responsibility of providing qualified staff for thelibrary and information professions, is currently challenged to ensure thatgraduates have competencies that align the profession with current trends andperspectives Many of the LIS schools in the continent recognize the fact that it

is their responsibility to steer the profession towards new directions in response

to changing information environment globally and locally This chapter aims toexamine the developments taking place within this specified context so as toprovide not only a ‘look-out’ position for the sector, but also to establish aplatform for mapping out future strategy

Worldwide, LIS education is being transformed in accordance with its changingconstituency - the changing LIS work place and visionary projection into thefuture Studies conducted in the USA, Canada, the UK and other developedcountries variously observe several identical changes that have taken place, thesignificant ones being change of name, broadening of aims, creation of newprogrammes, review of curricula, new courses, distance education and fostering

of closer liaison with industry A change of name may reflect structural, strategic

or cosmetic change Some schools have dropped the word "library" from thename and brought in "communication" and/or "technology", while others haveadopted what they consider more up-market names (Mangan 2000:3) withoutnecessarily discarding the important tenets of the profession In other cases, thechange of name signifies a change towards creating professional informationentrepreneurs rather than library functionaries What has been more significant

globally is the broadening of the mission or aims of the curricula so as to create

opportunities for specialties that include high-tech or non-traditional library

careers (Marcum 1997) Of equal significance has been the creation of new

programmes to accommodate the broadened aims, include new competencies

and/or attract more students Revision/review of curricula to adjust curricula to

meet the demands of students, employment market and higher education sector

is a challenge that has been necessitated not only by the evolutionary but also bythe transformatory changes in the profession Stoker (2000) observes that thegrowth of ICTs will continue to be the main reason behind core curriculumexpanding to accommodate new significant areas such as systems analysis and

design, and organizational theory The same applies to the creation/addition of

new subjects/courses/modules It is important to note that as ICTs develop, some

courses initially developed as separate ICT courses, have later been integrated inolder core areas The modern pressures of time and money, coupled with anincreasing requirement for changing, job-specific skills, have resulted in thefading of the need to attend regular classes and given rise to the development of

web-based instruction and distance education (Curry 2000) Stoker (2000)

observes that alternative modes of delivery such as part-time, distance learninghave arisen in the UK to alleviate the problem of cost Stoker (2000) further

states that full-time undergraduate programmes in UK are losing market to

distance education while there is potential for increasing postgraduate programs

LIS schools forge closer liaison with industry such as software companies,

hardware manufacturers, telecommunications and broadcasting corporations(Curry 2000) in order to obtain free or subsidized hardware and software, whileindustry finds an opportunity for development or marketing of products Inresponse to the changes within the LIS profession as discussed above, many LISschools in the developing world recognize the need to make a variety ofalterations (Manmart 1997; Ocholla 2003) The common focus is the aim toproduce professionals who can function effectively in the ICT-driveninformation environment and society transforming libraries into the 21st Century

Mambo (2000) observes that not only has the demand for LIS professionals inAfrica increased but so also has the number of education and trainingopportunities on the continent This concurs with Ocholla’s (2000) observationthat the development of LIS education correlates with the growth of libraries It

is therefore imperative that the types and quality of LIS education graduatesshould reflect or be a reflection of the types of services provided in the libraries.Undoubtedly, trends in the development of ICTs in the world today are centrallysignificant to the trends in information services and hence LIS education andtraining The term “LIS school” is used here to refer to an independent academicunit within (or without) a university, college, technikon/polytechnic or othertertiary institutions that provide professional and/or paraprofessionalprogrammes in the broader field of information science The authors arecognizant of the fact that institutions may name such a unit according to theirspecific, objectives, structure, job market influence, country framework and/orother preferences According to Minishi-Majanja (2004:122), such units inAfrica are designated as a school, institute, faculty, department or section and

can also contain a combination of discipline-related nomenclature such asinformation, library, knowledge, science, studies or technology, etc

In spite of the need for staff in libraries, archives and other information services,the development of education and training in Africa is a recent occurrence Theneed for trained staff to work in libraries within the geographical continent ofAfrica can be said to have existed for as long as collections of informationsources were first established However, scholars who have researched andwritten about this topic have disregarded the ancient period o the AlexandrianLibrary and focused only from the 20th century period This chapter does notaim to dispute their reasons for this Neither does it aim to indulge in aphilosophically historical discussion We only point this out to provide a spacefor speculation or study Suffice it that any attempt to provide a correct picture

of current trends and perspectives, requires that we look back, albeit briefly, so

as to put the present in perspective

The establishment of ‘modern’ formal education for the library and informationprofessionals in Africa can be traced back to 1938, when the first training oflibrarians began at the University of Pretoria (Raju (2003:74) in South Africa.University of Cape Town was the second in 1939, after which the next activity

on record is in Ghana in 1944 at the Achimota Teachers’ Training College(Gupta and Gupta 1997) The rest of sub-Saharan Africa started to establish LISschools in the 1960s, coincidentally, but not surprisingly with liberation fromcolonial rule However, the growth was slow in the 1960s and 1970s, with fiveand two schools being established in the sixties and seventies, respectively Amore significant increase in the number of new LIS schools was in the 1980s,when at least nine LIS schools were established, and in the 1990s when at leastanother eight new LIS schools were established Ocholla (2000) observes thatthe development of LIS education, alongside of that of libraries in Africa, hastremendously depended on foreign governments, particularly Britain, France andUSA This is so, not only because of the colonial legacy in the case of Britainand France, but also due to the inadequate local economic resources It isdifficult to establish the exact number of LIS schools within sub-Saharan Africa

at the moment While it is estimated that there are approximately over 55 “LISschools”, most of which are located in the Anglophone countries, it is evidentthat there are some new “schools’ that have recently been established of whichlittle is known The demand for higher education in many countries of Sub-Saharan Africa has witnessed the emergence of many new private universities,some of which offer LIS education Ikoja-Odongo (2006), for instance, mentions

that apart from the longstanding LIS School at Makerere University, there arenow three private universities which offer LIS education in Uganda InTanzania, there is a new player, i.e Tumaini University College, in addition tothe University of Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo In Zimbabwe, threepolytechnics and one university offer LIS education (Hikwa 2006) In contrast,South African LIS schools have decreased in number because of the recentmerging of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and rationalization ofprogrammes Further, it is important to note that not all countries haveestablished formal LIS education programmes and hence depend on sendingtheir people to other countries within the continent or overseas for LISeducation.

Nomenclature of schools and programmes is currently influenced by worldtrends as well as job market dictates Apart from the qualification designation(e.g BA, BSc, Diploma, MPhil, MA, etc.) the general historical progression ofthe qualifying nomenclature in English can be summarised as follows:

Fig 1: Change of nomenclature for LIS schools

Thus many LIS schools in sub-Saharan Africa have had to change their name fordifferent reasons Initially in the 1970s and early 1980s, the names changed from

"Librarianship" to "Library Science/Studies" (LS) so as to assert the fact that the

2008-discipline was scientific and professional as befitted university level 2008-disciplines.But the more significant change for the discipline happened in the 1980s and1990s whereby LIS schools incorporated "information" science into theirprogrammes and thus changing names from "Library Science" to "Library andInformation Science" This was the case at UNISA (1983), University ofZululand (1988), University of Natal (1989), Omdurman University (1995) andUniversity of Cape Town (1996) Bayero University made this change in 2002,and University of Botswana, University of Pretoria and Makerere Universitymade similar changes although they did not indicate when this was done.

In most cases this change was made in order to accommodate the wider scopethat had characterised LIS activities with the introduction of computers andother information technologies into the profession Moahi (2006) also observesthat the “traditional librarianship market” cannot absorb all graduates and hencemany LIS schools have had to shift their education and focus to embrace a widerjob market by offering programmes that have broader scope Thus some LISschools have added other terms to the LIS denotation so as to reflect thepresence of other disciplines such as Communications and InformationTechnology For instance at the University of Sierra Leone, the Institute ofLibrary Studies has changed its name to the Institute of Library, Information andCommunication Studies (INSLICS) and offers programmes in CommunicationStudies Currently, there is also much influence to include terms such asinformation systems, information technology, knowledge management (e.g.University of Johannesburg’s Department of Information and KnowledgeManagement), etc Apart from instructive naming, the positioning of LISdepartments within the institutional organograms may have an effect on thenomenclature chosen because departments in universities are usuallyadministered under a Faculty, School or Institute This then requires that thename and discipline of the department be one that falls within the broaderdisciplinary area of the faculty/school/institute Thus departments often adoptnames that allow flexibility, such as "information science" which can fall undertechnology, applied sciences and/or engineering sciences, as is the case at theUniversity of Pretoria in South Africa While many LIS schools are invariablylocated in the Arts or Humanities Faculties, it is interesting to note that inNigeria, some LIS schools are located in Education Faculties

In general, LIS schools in sub-Saharan Africa offer three levels of undergraduateprogrammes and four levels of postgraduate programmes (Minishi-Majanja &Ocholla, 2004) Undergraduate qualifications include certificates, diplomas and

bachelors degree, while postgraduate levels range from postgraduate diplomas todoctoral degrees It is observable that the names and nature of programmes arenot uniform Rosenberg (2000) observes that the lack of consistency in names ofcourses vis-à-vis standards of content and length is a historical accident that isoften perpetuated by national or institutional structures and practices Achievingsome uniformity can be useful for equivalence and recognition of qualificationsacross institutions and across countries Weech and Tammaro (2007) observethat “more librarians are seeking employment and further education outside theirown countries, yet there are no clear guidelines for determining the equivalency

of degrees and certificates A learning outcomes / competencies approach couldhelp with the communication between the stakeholders involved in lifelonglearning of library and information professionals and those involved with theacademic programs of education and training of library and informationprofessionals.” Following a survey, the IFLA Education and Training Sectionsuggested a focus on three areas i.e programme orientation, educational processorientation and learning outcomes orientation (Tammaro 2005) Programme

orientation, according to the Guidelines for professional L/IS educational

programees-2000 (IFLA 2000), should provide both a broad general education

as well as core LIS elements Most of the university-based qualifications in Saharan Africa have tried to incorporate both aspects The educational process ismuch more difficult to implement uniformly because of varying levels ofresources such as lecturers, ICT, library materials, etc

sub-While research and discussion on ‘equivalence and reciprocal recognition ofacademic qualifications’ is still continuing at IFLA’s Education and TrainingSection, it is fair to state that some of the African countries are trying to findcommon ground within their borders In South Africa for instance, the newlyenacted Higher Education Qualification Framework (HEQF) addresses theissues of countrywide equivalence However, the HEQF covers all tertiaryinstitutions and is not prescriptive of any specific discipline Thus LIS educatorswill still have the challenge of ensuring that their offerings and content iscomparable without necessarily duplicating each other’s programmes In Kenya,the situation is partially resolved by the involvement of the national curriculumbody, the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), which sets the curricula for allnon-university programmes and the Kenya National examinations Council(KNEC) which examines and certifies the qualifications Thus there is a set ofcurricular for LIS ranging from the Craft (certificate) level to the HigherNational Diploma level However, the most notable LIS education is conducted

in Universities, who do not use KIE curricula or KNEC examinations Odongo (2006) observes that in Uganda, the new LIS schools inadvertently copywhat Makerere is doing – however, not for uniformity’s sake but for lack ofexpertise in curriculum design

Ikoja-4.1 Curriculum development and core competencies

Many LIS schools are revamping and rationalising their offerings regularly so as

to keep up with students’ and market demands Universities are demandingvalue for money as governments reduce subsidies to these institutions However,

it is true that in spite of curricula reviews (Ocholla 2000) many of the curriculastill carry heavy leaning or patterns of LIS curricula from developed countries(Aina 1999) because these are considered “best” examples as they have beenoffered over long periods and, in a way, stood the test of time Aina furtherhighlights the dearth of local publications for use by students, the lack of whichraises the issue of supporting literature that originates from other continents andhence contains a lot of content that African LIS students cannot easily relate to.There is always a general outcry over the neglect of local context andindigenous knowledge and practices in curricular Part of the problem is the factthat most of the current LIS educators who are responsible for developingcurricula are themselves either alumni of the foreign curricula and find it hard tocome up with ‘original’ African curricula, or they lack expertise in curriculumdevelopment However, it is important to remember that even the experiencedLIS educators are careful not to provide too parochial an education that wouldrender graduates restricted and unable to function outside their localities This is

an important consideration in the face of limited job markets on the one handand the effect of globalization on the other Thus, sub-Saharan LIS schools oftenaim to produce graduates whose core competencies including the ability to adapt

to only different countries but also to the ever-changing job market needs It is

no wonder that the “core of LIS education and training is expressed in verygeneric terminology that embraces the broader information profession” (Raju2003:232)

LIS education programmes in sub-Saharan Africa provide basic knowledge thatcan be generally applied in an information service, including managinginformation collections, organization and retrieval of information, understandinginformation users and information needs, understanding informationresources/products and providing service Raju (2003) observes that the core ofLIS education is elusive because of the constant/continuous evolution of theprofession There is a continued growth of a diversity of fields that areconsidered as core subjects, which when pitched against the need for market-

ready graduates, make the task of preparing a curriculum difficult The 10 “core

elements” listed by IFLA (2000:2) are only the tip of the iceberg, not only

because they are general enough not to be prescriptive, but also because by thesame token, they are subject to interpretation (e.g in areas of emphasis), often asubject to the knowledge and expertise of the curriculum designers Raju’ssurvey in South Africa produced a list of 25 possible subjects for the South

African market alone (Raju 2003:235), a list that would get longer if the rest ofthe countries can be surveyed In Africa, this situation is further exacerbated bythe diversity of the continent in terms of the information environments,economies of scale, social development levels, ICT infrastructure and evenliteracy levels, which often make many of the LIS graduates seem unpreparedfor the workplace Stoker (2000) warns of the adverse effect of an enlarging corei.e the marginalization or elimination of some of the traditionalmainstream/specialist courses, such as music librarianship, rare booklibrarianship and children's librarianship But he observes that there is no clear-cut solution to the issue and recommends that educators respond to theemployment market by, for instance, offering some of these specialisations aselectives accordingly.

4.2 ICT curricula

Sub-Saharan Africa LIS schools offer a wide variety of ICT modules withintheir curricula However, the curricula are not harmonized – either across theregion or even within individual countries Thus within one country, it is notunusual to find great diversity of offerings among the LIS schools, eachattempting to offer what they believe to be key competencies for their graduates.But also underlying this diversity is the national and institutional ICT capacities(Ngulube 2006) because at national levels, some countries have made greaterstrides than others For instance, the South African government recognises thatICT human resource capacity building is the key to the accomplishment of theideals of the information age To ensure that the country is well positioned forthis society, not only is the infrastructure continually under scrutiny, but highereducation is expected to increase enrolments in the ICT fields of study (Ministry

of Education, 2001) Another example is Uganda’s liberalisedtelecommunications policy of 1996, which paved the way for private sectorinvestment into, and hence greater and faster ICT penetration (Ikoja-Odongo2006) The significance of governmental intervention is exhibited in the growth

of the ICT infrastructure, which then provides a platform for institutions and LISdepartments to increase their ICT diffusion But this is not true of all Africancountries Poor economies, political instability, large populations, badleadership/governance and a myriad of other problems have not made it possiblefor many African countries to adequately address the subject of ICTinfrastructure and education

According to Minishi-Majanja and Ocholla (2004), the modules that generallytop the list are of fundamental relevance to LIS practice These includeOperating Systems, Applications software, Hardware & Software selection,

LANs and Intranets, Internet Facilities and Internet Tools However, asmentioned before, what is taught in the above modules does not always translateinto comparable knowledge and competencies There is no uniform approach towhat is taught, let alone how it is taught (Ngulube 2006) Additionally, eventhough sub-Saharan Africa LIS schools collectively offer what seems to be anadequately wide variety of ICT modules, research on ICT curricula reveals apreponderance of difficulties in the absence of African benchmarks and models(Ngulube 2006) Only few LIS schools offer what may be deemed as the fullrange of ICT competencies In some of the individual institutions, the range ofmodules offered cannot even be deemed to be enough For instance, Manda(2006:5) observes that the integration of ICT into paraprofessional training inTanzania is limited in both modules and course content He further observes that

“as an independent subject, ICT is offered only as an optional course” in the MAInformation studies curriculum at the University of Dar-es- Salaam (Manda2006:5) However, and to emphasize the disparities among universities evenwithin one country, Manda further observes that the BA-LIS programme atTumaini University in Tanzania offers more ICT modules and content than theUniversity of Dar-es-Salaam’s MA programme, the basic deciding factor beingresources (i.e ICT and human)

Table 1: Reflective of the relative importance of ICT Modules (2003 data) (N=29)

Module %Core % Elective % Integrated %Not Offered

Most ICT modules are offered as core and/or required within the LISprogrammes In many cases, ICT content is said to be “integrated” in other

modules that are core/required Table 1 (reproduced from Minishi-Majanja &

Ocholla 2004:194) shows the percentage of LIS schools, under each category,

offering each module

4.3 Continuing education

The need for continuing LIS education in sub-Saharan Africa need nooveremphasis considering that no amount of core is enough to last five years,leave alone a lifetime, in a fast-changing hi-tech world Ocholla (2003) andStoker (2000) rightly observe that no one skill will equip an individual at allstages of their career because technical skills quickly become outdated Stoker(2000) further observes that professional education can no longer be delivered inone slice because of its diversity, and that knowledge and skills acquired in fulltime education now have limited span of relevance and hence need to becontinuously updated Thus there is obvious need for programmes thatspecifically focus on continuing education However, in planning continuouseducation programmes, educators need to remember that the content ofcontinuous education may not need to add up to complete programmes of studybecause, in some cases, it may just be a module that is relevant to a newdevelopment Additionally, employers and employees are no longer finding itaffordable to allow for full time study leave

Sadly, though, continuing professional education (CPE) for LIS workers in Saharan Africa is one of the LIS programs, which is underdeveloped in theregion Previous studies (e.g Ocholla, 2000; Ocholla & Bothma, 2007) revealthat CPE programs in Africa are being offered through local professional bodies(e.g Continuing Education and Professional Development [CEPD], the Libraryand Information Association of South Africa [LIASA], Namibian WorkersAssociation, etc.) in collaboration with various LIS schools Examples of theLIS schools that offer CPE include those that are affiliated with the followinguniversities: University of Cape Town, University of KwaZulu Natal, University

Sub-of Botswana, University Sub-of Johannesburg, Moi University (Kenya), MakerereUniversity and the University of Namibia (Namibia) (Ocholla, 2000) It is worthnoting, however, that this information is not current and therefore less is knownabout the status of CPE in LIS schools in Africa Nevertheless, some LISschools (e.g the Department of Information Studies, University of Limpopo,South Africa) have joined the list of those that provide CPE The University ofLimpopo’s department of information studies offers programs related tolibrarianship Whereas most LIS trainers and educators concur that CPE is avery important component of LIS education and training, as a way of building

capacity and re-energizing LIS workers especially in the ever-changinginformation and knowledge environment, they nevertheless note that theprogramme’s implementation is challenging The most challenging factor thatwas voiced by most Heads of Departments whose opinion was sought throughemails is the staff capacity, which is said to be insufficient The limited number

of LIS staff members are said to be overloaded and therefore cannot support newprograms such as CPE

Most studies on LIS education and training tend to focus on curricula andcontent, often neglecting the question of resources At the recently concludedIFLA conference in Durban-South Africa (August 2007), a heated debate startedregarding the relative importance (if possible, the ranking) of curriculum versusacademic staff versus students as factors that influence the quality of LISeducation The debate came to know (no?) specific conclusion but it was clearthat each of the three components has significance towards the successfulachievement of producing good quality LIS graduates What did not featurestrongly in the discussion was the role of resources (e.g the library and ICTs),perhaps not because these are of lesser importance, but more because the threewere sufficient variables to contend with Thus, below we briefly discuss issues

on the academic staff and ICT resources, two of the most influential resources inthe quality of LIS education in sub-Saharan Africa

5.1 Academic Staff

According to the findings of Minishi-Majanja (2004), the staff-student ratio insub-Saharan LIS schools is 1:38 Most academic staff are qualified havingsatisfied stringent institutional standards for the appointment of academic staff.Nevertheless, many LIS schools cannot fill all their positions because of scarcity

of qualified candidates vis-à-vis the uncompetitive salaries within the academicsector Some LIS schools make use of temporary/contract or part-time staff,mainly consisting of practitioners who wish to earn extra money Generallymost LIS departments are small ranging from as few as three academics to thelargest departments having about twenty-four, with an arithmetic mode of sixacademic staff (Minishi-Majanja 2004:148) The negative implication of thesesmall departments is that often they are unable to earn enough personnel pointsfor many senior positions such as professors or research fellows Thus LISprofessors who wish to ascend higher in their career have often had to leave the

LIS department and join the university administration or leave the universityaltogether to research and other organisations.

5.2 ICT resources

At the institutional level, each university or college is able to muster substantialtechnological diffusion depending on its history, management (vision, policies,etc.), financial well-being (i.e funding sources or innovativeness, etc.) and ahost of other characteristics In South Africa, the “historically black universitiesare much more badly resourced” while the “historically advantaged are wellresourced and appear to do be doing better” in terms of ICT education andtraining (Ngulube 2006:4) In many African universities, the respectivegovernment is the main source of funding, with the result that many universitiesare poorly funded (Rosenberg, 2000) further resulting in inadequacies ofresources Moreover, long-term planning in such universities is oftenproblematic since government funds are appropriated annually, without expressassurance A host of private universities have recently emerged in somecountries such as Uganda (Ikoja-Odongo 2006) and Kenya, where the mainsource of university funding is the students’ fees While the fees are generallyhigher than those paid within the government-funded universities, theinstitutions are careful not to charge such high fees as to be prohibitive to theprospective students Coupled with the fact that such universities aim tomaximize profit, they tend not to invest heavily in expensive programmes,infrastructure or equipment The success of LIS schools in such universitiesdepends on the ‘viability’ of LIS programmes – often defined in terms of agreater number of students requiring minimum investment expenditure Thisdefinitely compromises the level of ICT resources and education to be provided

ICTs are a fund-intensive innovation, requiring not only careful budgeting, butequally important, sustained funding With the cost of computers fallingdramatically, government interventions in lowering or abolishing levies on ICTs,and with systems becoming much easier to use and maintain, it is hoped thatsome of the prohibitive cost and infrastructural problems are being Sub-SaharanLIS schools generally lack guiding policies for the development and use ofICTs Where policies exist, usually within the parent institution, the policies arenot comprehensive enough to take into consideration the needs of individualdepartments Some LIS schools counter this state of affairs by formulatingdepartmental policies to guide the procurement and use of ICT resources based

on curricula needs Such policies succeed if the LIS School has sufficientfinancial resources and autonomy, but in most cases, departmental ICT policiesare difficult to effectively implement especially if there is institutional