On the possibility of an African university: towards a scholarship of criticism, deliberation and responsibility – Y Waghid

For those making an argument in defence of an African university, the question about the need to justify the notion of such a university seems absurd. In this essay I argue that the idea of an African university cannot be separated from the notion of what scholarship entails. My contention is that scholarship is inextricably connected to what it means to be critical, deliberative and responsible. And, unless an African university lends itself to being critical, deliberative and responsible – constitutive features of scholarship- it cannot be justified as a university.
From: SAJHE 19 Special Issue 2005, pp. 1306-1314