Scholarships and University development in Kenya and Tanzania

Concern about the increasing cost and questionable relevance of much overseas training, combined with the growth of home country training facilities, has in Africa raised questions about the extent to which scholarship provision has adapted to changing circumstances in recent years. It has pointed to the need for more systematic information than we now have about the pattern of scholarship provision and its relationship to training needs and job performance. At present we have a rather fragmentary basis for deciding which kinds of skills and knowledge can best be provided at home and which need to be sought elsewhere. Where overseas training seems advisable we need to know more about the kinds of training, institutions, programmes and time periods which relate to particular skill needs and how they can be integrated into national and regional programmes. As a step towards the provision of some relevant information this article examines the impact of one specific scholarship programme which has been concerned with the training of university staff for Kenya and Tanzania. The experience of this programme is used to suggest some conditions and identify some issues associated with effective overseas training. Effectiveness is examined from the standpoint of congruence between training content and occupational requirements and then in relation to features of the occupational and administrative culture which exist in the scholar's home country. Finally some suggestions are made for fruitful research areas and approaches.An earlier draft of this paper was presented at a Conference on the Impact of Overseas Scholarship on Development held at the University of Dar es Salaam, December 12–17, 1977.