African universities are 'diploma mills'

he idea of universities in Africa as places for the pursuit of knowledge has been denigrated by influential voices promoting the view that they should rather operate as instruments to fix the continent's maladies, says Patricio Langa, an associate professor of higher education at the University of the Western Cape. Without clarity on the differentiation in the system to promote different purposes and types of higher education institutions, massification will continue to turn universities into diploma mills, rather than fostering the pursuit of new knowledge.