Needs-based knowledge processing through university- community partnerships: higher education inroads into rural community development in Zimbabwe
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Date
2008-11
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The UNESCO Forum on Higher Education Research and Knowledge
Abstract
Knowledge, the ultimate competitive advantage for any modern community or organization, gives its possessor a unique and inherently protected commodity for survival and development. Today's universities are among those organizations credited for spearheading and sustaining the on-going knowledge revolution. In developing countries, universities have come to playa key role within their own societies in a wide range of developmental issues even though they often find themselves acutely outclassed in the competitive international knowledge network (Altbach, 1998). Notably, many universities need sensitization for them to prioritize the integration of local and alien knowledge that should address broader sustainable development needs as perceived by the affected communities. Comparatively, the superior military, economic, intellectual and technological accomplishments of industrialized countries give some of their universities extensive, jealously-guarded power, prompting them to assert themselves as 'central' institutions within their countries and in the global knowledge arena. The third world universities remain 'peripheral', tending to copy developments from abroad, producing little that is original, and generally not at the frontiers of knowledge. Within developing countries, the Western-sourced education, science, technology and Western human development models appear to perpetrate a socio-economic and knowledge gap among citizens, creating a conservative traditional culture alongside a neo-Western one.
Description
Keywords
University-community partnerships, Higher education, Rural community development, Zimbabwe
Citation
Phuthi N., Gundani P., and Sibanda I. (2008). Needs-based knowledge processing through universitycommunity partnerships: higher education inroads into rural community development in Zimbabwe. UNESCO.