Africa universities have been urged to exploit funds and opportunities that the Association of African Universities (AAU) offers for teaching and development, University of Nairobi, Vice Chancellor, Prof George Magoha has said.
Mahoga who is the acting president of AAU said the money for staff exchange and ICT trainin is being wasted.
The VC who was speaking during the opening of the association's biennial conference at Stellenbosch University in South Africa said that although the AAU did not have solutions to every problem of individual universities, there were simply not enough takers for the resources available.
"We have more than 600 universities on the continent and 242 are members. That's where the problem starts, lack of interest among universities. We struggle to get people on board from different regions of Africa," he said.
The Conference of lectures, Vice-chancellors and chancellors of African Universities who this year theme was, "Strengthening the Space of Higher Education in Africa". The last meeting was held in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2009.
He says that universities have failed to join the association and benefit from the funds afforded while at the same time majority of African universities are underfunded to carry out their mission knowledge dissemination, research and being part of the answer to the problems in their contextual society.
He said some African university leaders were quick to condemn the AAU as useless, yet they were not bringing their support and ideas to the organization.
"We have grants for thesis and dissertation supervision but rarely people ask about it," he said, adding that this lack of interest was contributing to African higher education's problem of churning out masters graduates, but not nearly enough of them advancing to PhD study.
He called on the African Union to commit funds to doctoral study on the continent, which would help to tackle a severe high-level skills crisis and could help the visibility of smaller universities.
Professor Russel Botman, Rector and Vice-chancellor of Stellenbosch University, pointed out that Africa produced only 0.7% of the world's scientific research. "Clearly we are not doing enough to come up with home-grown solutions to our problems in Africa," he said.
Another area with underused funding was staff exchanges of between three to six months within Africa, said Magoha, a Kenyan neurologist who calls himself "a human plumber".
"The AAU has money for library training but it is not being fully used. There is need for modern libraries among our universities," he added. "We also have support for regional consortia of universities to negotiate cheaper internet bandwidth."
Magoha said funds and other opportunities offered by AAU were publicised through letters to members as well as on the organisation's website. "If you are a vice-chancellor and you cannot use the internet, you have no reason to be in that office."
He said the conference would be used to spread the AAU word, and to lobby universities not represented and tell them about the benefits of being members.
For years the AAU has grappled with the problem of universities becoming members but not paying their dues, and this issue continues. "Some governments think they still support the AAU through African Union but this is not the case," he said.
Despite the questionable credentials of Libya's besieged leader Muammar Gaddafi, Magoha said Libyan universities had always honoured their dues through their government. And some countries such as Ghana where the AAU is based, have been highly supportive. But this is not the norm.
Magoha said his vision as acting president was to maintain the mandate of the AAU as the representative voice of African higher education in and outside the continent.
The body also strives to advocate recognition of the role of higher in Africa's development, and is working to strengthen efforts to provide quality education that produces individuals trained to meet the demands of African commerce and industry.
The new AAU Secretary General, Professor Olugbemiro Jegede, said that while education was the key to the future and high education was a path to it, merely attaining education was not the goal. Higher education must also solve Africa's many challenges.
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