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general institutional growth and efficiency. Standards and patterns for 

 development of such subject areas with direct potential relevance to devel- 

 opment such as sociology and anthropology usually were set by expatriates 

 from universities in the West which could afford science in and for its 

 own sake without regard to social or economic relevance. 



As a result, many governments in Africa came to regard the univer- 

 sities and colleges assites of privilege and elitism whose function was 

 limited to manpower training. The universities were expected to produce 

 neither research nor action on the pressing basic human needs of the 

 common peoples. Ministries and institutes absorbed some of the research 

 and extension functions rejected by the university faculties, but that 

 work frequently was not of highest quality because it had not emerged in 

 association with the core conceptions and definitions of "Science" and 

 because the institutes sometimes did not command the best scientific man 

 and womanpower of the nation. 



Foreign donors had provided large sums of funding for developing 

 African universities during this period; however, as the food and eco- 

 logical crises of the 1970s worsened, those monies were diverted toward 

 the more immediate needs for food production, food security, institution 

 building, and development of agricultural research and planning capacity 

 in the government ministries. 



Simultaneously, however, more and more African men and women were 

 completing MA, MS, and PhD degrees. Increasing numbers also moved into 

 scientific fields instead of the earlier concentration on arts, letters, 

 history, language, and politics. Governments also began to place more 

 pressure on the universities to train larger numbers of students, and 

 enrollments were increased markedly, sometimes by as much as fivefold. As 

 a result, even those institutions seeking to become more relevant to the 



