106 Book Reviews
Vuorela holds that productive and reproductive relationships both appropriate
labour within a given social formation. Although the two types of relationships are
interdependent, they may be in opposition when one undercuts the other. For
example, the mode of production may use and subordinate the mode of human
reproduction in marriage in a way that generates conflicts between the two modes.
Msoga village in Tanzania is used to illustrate and validate the author's theory. The
fact that the Kwere people in Msoga are matrilineal is interesting because it enables
her to elaborate her theory. She points out that matrilineal and patrilineal systems
both exist within patrilineal modes of human reproduction.
The theory is interesting and fairly well presented. Vuorela indicates that the
discovery of the male role in paternity does not necessarily lead to the supercession of
matrilineality by patrilineality. Her approach enables us to analyse human
reproduction without accepting the contours imposed by androcentric assumptions.
What could be better explained is the process by which fraternal interest groups
make the mode of production into a patriarchal one. It is important to note that the
strategies that are used by Kwere women have also been noted amongst women in
patrilineal societies. Factually, it should be pointed out that it is the sperm that
fertilise ova and not the semen. These observations do not detract from the merit of
the theory presented by the author in her attempt to elaborate a materialist theory of
modes of human reproduction.
Reviewed by Rudo Gaidzanwa, Dept of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe.
Financing Education in Developing Countries — An Exploration of Policy
Options, World Bank, Washington DC 1986. Higher Education in Sub-Saharan
Africa, Keith Hinchliffe, Croom Helm Ltd, 1987 (189pp, £19,95 hbk).
These two books were written at more or less the same time, during the height of
Thatcherite and Reaganite economics, with their emphasis on cutting public
expenditure in the social services, including education, and on the deregulation and
privatisation of state run institutions, especially those engaged in production. This
kind of thinking is being exported to developing countries by Thatcherite and
Reaganite intellectuals and the official aid agencies of these countries. It is this
philosophy which informs the World Bank Report and to some extent Keith's report,
although he takes a more balanced view and questions some of the assumptions
that underlie die recommendations made by the World Bank Report.
These two books have also come out during a period of extreme economic
hardship in most African countries. During this period both the World Bank and the
IMF were pressurising beleagured African governments into restructuring their
economies by cutting down on public expenditure and increasing the privatisation of
paras tatals.
Basically the two books are saying that:
(a) Education, especially university education, has become very expensive. The latter
in some cases consumes as much as 20 per cent of the total Education budget,
while only benefiting a small elite.
(b) The Public cost of higher education should be recovered through making the
student pay an economic fee, by reducing subsidies given to students in the form
of grants, and by cutting down on non-teaching staff expenditure.
Book Reviews 107
(c) A credit market for education, together with selective scholarships for the poor,
should be established.
(e) Money saved by removing subsidies on higher education should be channelled to
the primary and secondary sectors for expansion.
(f) There is a close relationship between levels of education, especially in terms of
efficiency and quality graduates. The quality of education at the secondary level
affects students' ability to study at the university level. An example is given from
Nigeria, where in one year 72 per cent of all those who sat for the West African
Certificate failed, especially in Science and Mathematics, necessitating the
introduction of pre-degree science courses.
(g) Universities in Africa have failed to deliver the goods especially in terms ot
producing technical professionals, and science and mathematics teachers.
Furthermore the high dependency on expatriates in most African countries
continues, even in those countries that have been independent for twenty years.
The product of these universities does not justify their high cost.
The World Bank Report puts emphasis on the privatisation of schools in order to
increase competition within the system. This is supposed to ensure higher efficiency
through greater managerial accountability. The report has incredible faith in the
ability of market forces, on their own, to solve the problem of the misallocation of
resources among the different levels in education and that they can promote equity
through channelling more funds to the primary school level. The Report claims that
primary education has the highest rate of return since the largest number of students
in developing countries are in this group. This last argument seems to be based on
the figures from the early 1960s when it was still relatively easy for Std 6 graduates
to get jobs.
Keith's book looks at primary and secondary schooling in Africa in the first two
chapters, and tries to relate the output from both levels to the number of jobs
available. The author concludes that for the primary school leaver in the 1980s there
are virtually no job opportunities in the formal sector. In addition, the land shortage
is serious in most African countries, and this closes up the only other channel open
to them, ie agriculture. As a result, most primary school graduates are doomed to be
petty traders or producers in the informal sector, which is already overburdened by
unemployed adults and where rewards are very low.
The future is not so bright either for secondary school graduates, and even university
graduates, especially those in the humanities. According to the author there are
a number of weaknesses in the arguments put forward by institutions like the World
Bank. He maintains that efficiency arguments are not backed by statistics. For
example, it is alleged that there is a relationship between private financing and lower
repetition and drop out rates and that students will behave more as investors and
less as consumers in terms of subject choice, ie they will choose those subjects that
have the higher rate of return (science and maths). There is also no guarantee that the
monies saved from higher education will automatically be channelled to primary and
secondary education. It should be remembered that the decision makers in many
countries are able to send their children to 6lite private schools and there is, therefore,
no compulsion for them to transfer large sums of money to improve primary
and secondary education. Privatisation in most cases has tended to work against
"equity, because wealthy communities are always a minority in any country and they
108 Book Reviews
resent the transfer of funds to boost schools in peasant or working class areas.
It is interesting to note that in a country like Zimbabwe the most expensive and
exclusive schools are in wealthy suburbs or wealthy commercial farming areas.
Keith also makes an important observation with regard to making students pay an
economic fee for both tuition and boarding. Many students resent paying more for
university education, and governments are wary of giving large loans to students as
this would inevitably commit them to giving the students employment once they
graduate. He maintains that most of the public sector has very few vacancies for
humanities students, but has plenty of vacancies for the technically qualified
graduates. He mentions the case of Sudan and Somalia where there is a severe brain
drain in terms of science graduates who are emigrating to the Gulf States where jobs
are well paid.
Finally, the author makes some suggestions on how to cut costs. These suggestions
include, cutting down the number of non-teaching staff in universities, getting
universities engaged in viable commercial activities like consulting services, or
producing goods like furniture, vegetables, poultry, and beef. They should also
abolish free tickets for sabbaticals — and made more resources available for research
and teaching.
Feeding and accommodation subsidies should also be reduced, though this is
recognised as a political hot potato. Very few governments would survive without
resorting to brute force, including closing the universities, should such a decision be
taken.
What is missing from both books is a reference to the weaknesses of the African
economies. Particularly their inability to develop viable industries for processing the
raw materials which are in great abundance on die continent. It is only by adding
value to raw materials diat more jobs can be created, and so absorb the deluge of
graduates from all levels of the educational system.
The North-South relationship has a lot to do with the present crisis in education,
diough it is true to say that even the capitalist countries of the West are also
experiencing the unemployment crisis. Keith tries to relate education to the labour
market, but does not relate the labour market to the nature and structure of African
economies.
The two books have been produced at an opportune moment, especially for
Zimbabwe which has recendy established a Commission of Inquiry into the
possibility of establishing a Second University Campus. Those involved in the
exercise and university administration would benefit from reading the two books.
Some of the problems and issues outlined apply equally to Zimbabwe. The two case
studies of Nigerian and Ghananian universities contain a wealth of information
which is relevant to Zimbabwean and orfier African universities. Strategies need to
be developed to deal with the problem of maintaining present standards while also
coping with increasing enrollments.
Reviewed by Taka Mudariki, Harare.
Social Structures: A Network Approach, Barry Wellman and S D Berkowitz (eds),
Cambridge University Press, 1988 (513pp, £15,00)
This edited book seems to distinguish and put forward a 'new' structural approach, 'a