Sierra Leone : Njala University College

In order to address the need for trained manpower, the Government of Sierra Leone (GOSL) and A.I.D. established the Njala University College (NUC) in 1963. For a decade, from 1963 to 1973, A.I.D. provided $4.5 million in grant funds to finance the provision of long-term expatriate faculty and the training of Sierra Leonean faculty in U.S. universities. In the 20 years since its founding, NUC has been extremely effective in pursuing the twin educational missions of providing scientifically trained agriculturalists and training teachers for rural schools - in particular teachers of rural science and of agriculture. Njala graduates now occupy positions of responsibility in the Ministry of Agriculture and are engaged at many levels in research and extension activities. Likewise, its graduates staff secondary schools and the faculties of the training colleges throughout the rural areas of Sierra Leone. The above achievements have been accomplished despite the fact that NUC's effectiveness has been increasingly constrained by an expanding admissions policy and by major decreases in budgetary resources. NUC's physical plant is now so badly deteriorated and limited in capacity that parts of its educational, research, and outreach programs have been abandoned or drastically curtailed. Beyond the production and employment of its graduates within the education and agricultural sectors, NUC has had limited impact on the process of rural development in Sierra Leone. In part this condition can be attributed to inadequate funding from the GOSL to support a strong research and extension program at NUC. However, a wider set of institutional practices and policies have also served to neutralize NUC's larger impact on the rural sector. Thus, throughout the research and extension system, there is an increasing emphasis on adaptive research which relegates the researcher and extension agent to the testing of technical packages rather than on problem identification in the generation of solutions. This approach, which has been adopted at the behest of major foreign donors, including A.I.D., is marginalizing the national research effort as it bypasses the direct link between researchers and farmers which is necessary for meaningful technology development. A major lesson from the NUC experience is that donor policies can seriously hamper the growth of a strong and effective agricultural college. The lack of a long-term focus by donors on the development of NUC's institutional needs and linkages with the larger agricultural research and extension system, in addition to a concomitant donor emphasis on adaptive over problemsolving research, and capital over recurrent funding has served to constrain the performance and impact of NUC. (Author abstract)