Compare, Vol. 34, No. 2, June 2004
‘Now I am free’—education and human resource development in Eritrea: contradictions in the lives of Eritrean women in higher education Tanja R. Mu¨ller* Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Human resource development as an objective of education policy in developing countries is increasingly narrowed down to its human capital component. In Eritrea, the objective of a highly centralized human resource development strategy is to produce human capital for the advancement of the nation. This instrumentalist view ignores the fact that education is not only related to one’s position in a given society, but equally to the development of personal identity and new forms of agency on an individual level—thus potentially encompassing contradictions between the individual and the common good. This paper—based on the personal histories of a sample of female students at Asmara University—discusses these contradictions in terms of these women’s acceptance of and resistance to the government’s plan for them. It further argues that an education system geared predominantly towards the creation of human capital is bound to do so at the expense of social solidarity.
Keywords: developing countries; education policy; Eritrea; human resource development
Introduction Education policy commonly has objectives beyond the area of education, comprising a combination of political, social, economic and pedagogic concerns (Psacharopoulos, 1993; Green, 1997). An important focus in developing and transitional countries centres on the fulfilment of human resource needs, often stipulated by a national development plan (Buchert, 1998). The prototypical example for the success of such a strategy is Singapore (Castells, 1992), regarded as a model by the Eritrean leadership (Mu¨ller, 1998). Other examples include South Korea and Taiwan (Hoogvelt, 1997), and in Africa with varying degrees of success Mauritius, Botswana, Tanzania and Uganda among others (Asayehgn, 1979; Mkandawire, 2001; Kwesiga, 2002). Human resource development (HRD) in itself can be understood in different ways: HRD in its broadest sense is an all-inclusive concept, referring to the process *Wageningen UR, PO Box 8060, 6700 DA Wageningen, The Netherlands. Email:
[email protected] ISSN 0305-7925 (print)/ISSN 1469-3623 (online)/04/020215-15 2004 British Association for International and Comparative Education DOI: 10.1080/0305792042000214029
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of ‘increasing the knowledge, skills and capacities of all people in a society’ (Tseggai, 1999, p. 216), encompassing in economic terms the accumulation of human capital, in political terms preparing people for participation in democratic political processes, and in social and cultural terms helping people to lead fuller lives, less bound by tradition (Tseggai, 1999). The dominant human capital theory (World Bank, 1995, 1999a; Fine & Rose, 2001), has, however, narrowed HRD down to its economic aspects, or its human capital component. Within this framework, the highest rates of return have over the last decades been anticipated for investment in primary education, especially for girls (World Bank, 1988; Browne & Barrett, 1991; Psacharopoulos, 1994; Summers, 1994; for a critical discussion see Heward & Bunwaree, 1999). This focus is still visible in the Education For All (EFA) initiative, aiming to achieve universal primary education by the year 2015 (see http://www.paris21.org.betterworld). On the other hand, the World Bank (1999b, 2000) more recently acknowledged the importance of technical and higher education for countries not to be left behind in a global economy based on knowledge. Criticizing an analysis that measures the benefits of higher education solely in terms of incremental earnings accruing to individuals, higher education is regarded as ‘simultaneously improv[ing] individual lives and enrich[ing] wider society’ (World Bank, 2000, p. 37). This statement seems to indicate an acknowledgement of HRD as the inclusive concept described above. But reading the World Bank document carefully shows these positive externalities being conceived of in an instrumentalist way as ultimately economic benefits—in terms of creating good governance, a meritocratic society, a developed infrastructure, all with the aim for entrepreneurship to strive (see Fine & Rose, 2001, for a general critique). What is ignored is the notion of helping people to ‘lead fuller lives, less bound by tradition’—an aspect of particular importance to women in developing countries (Kwesiga, 2002). Nor is the ideological potential of education (Green, 1997), its role in citizen formation and in fostering social solidarity taken into account. Social solidarity is understood as the propensity of individuals to contribute to the wider societal good and used here instead of social capital (this paper is not the place to discuss the controversial debates around the notion of social capital, but see for example Evans, 1996; Harriss & de Renzio, 1997; Fine, 1999). The remainder of this paper discusses whether and how HRD as a tool for national human capital formation can at the same time facilitate cultural change and foster social solidarity using the example of Eritrea. It will do so by looking at the lives of individual women students in higher education. The focus on women is due to the fact that in a comprehensive programme of social transformation of Eritrean society, a change in the status of women is placed at centre stage by the political leadership. Within this programme, education is recognized as the crucial factor to enable women to redefine their private and public roles (Stefanos, 1997). The focus on higher education reflects the approach towards women’s emancipation within the Eritrean leadership: it is based on the assumption that the more women there are in leadership positions, the more likely it will be for the bulk of ‘ordinary’ women to advance. While this might not be a sufficient condition for sustainable women’s emancipation within a given society, in the Eritrean context
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‘exceptional’ women as pioneers are regarded as necessary to consolidate progress in that direction for the wider majority (for a more detailed discussion see Mu¨ller, 2003). Findings from Uganda confirm the crucial importance of such women as role models (Kwesiga, 2002). More generally, tertiary education is the critical stage of preparation for future positions of responsibility at all levels of society (Beoku-Betts, 1998). The paper investigates whether and how their higher education enables the women protagonists in this study to lead ‘fuller lives’, and what implications their lived experiences might have for social solidarity within Eritrean society. In doing so, the voices of the actors take centre stage. How they position themselves within an HRD framework which defines women’s emancipation as a function of the wider objectives of the state and are able to create spaces for personal emancipation will be discussed in terms of their acceptance of and resistance to the demands put on them (Stacki & Monkman, 2003).1 Methodologically, the study is based on the narratives of 29 women students in their last year of academic study at the University of Asmara (UoA).2 The interviews were conducted during the academic year 2000/2001 in multiple sessions in English, of which all participants had good command, having had formal education in English from grade seven onwards. The sample of 29 interviewees (out of a total of 125) was purposively selected as a maximum variation sample taking into account ethnicity, religion and subject of study. The narrative data is supplemented by data from a survey conducted among a sample of female and male students (359 students altogether) in degree programmes at the UoA. Stratified sampling was used to include students from all study years and subjects. The sampling frame contained 361 female full-time students in degree programmes (excluding the 29 women interviewees), 176 of whom participated in the survey as did 183 of their male counterparts. The general debate on education policy and HRD in Eritrea was accessed through documentation and key-informant interviews. The following first introduces the Eritrean context in general and education policy and HRD in particular. The text proceeds in providing different examples of the way the contradictions arising from higher education within Eritrea’s HRD strategy are played out in the lives of the women protagonists, using the concepts of acceptance and resistance to discuss these women’s increased possibilities for personal agency. With additional reference to some of the survey data it is concluded that in focusing predominately on the creation of human capital, Eritrea’s HRD strategy is in danger of diminishing social solidarity. Education policy and HRD in Eritrea Eritrea is situated in the Horn of Africa on the coast of the Red Sea, bordering Ethiopia, Sudan and Djibouti. Its population of 3.2 million people is divided into nine different ethnic groups. Eighteen per cent of the population live in urban areas (UNCTAD, 1999). When Eritrea gained independence in 1991 after a 30-year long liberation war against Ethiopia, it had to start from scratch in almost every aspect. The war had left the main economic activity, agriculture, severely disrupted, most
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industrial enterprises non-operational, infrastructure highly damaged, and health and education facilities disintegrated. The country’s most valuable asset is its people and the social solidarity present in Eritrean society, a society characterized by a high sense of community as well as a strong commitment to development (WB, 1994). The government to this day is made up of the former liberation movement, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), which transformed itself in 1994 into the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), the sole existing party. In reality, the exact status of the PFDJ partway between ‘a single ruling party and a national movement’ (Luckham, 2002, p. 256) remains unresolved. A new constitution was ratified in 1997 providing for the creation of representative democracy. For the time being, its implementation has been suspended, a move justified with the national emergency in the course of the 1998–2000 Eritreo-Ethiopian border war, an event which reinforced the already highly centralized style of governance. Before this new war, Eritrea had been hailed as a model due to its impressive achievements in all areas of economic and human development (Ottaway, 1999). Given the country’s limited natural resources and arable land, this development relies to a large extent on human capital formation (IMF, 2003). To achieve its developmental goals and at the same time build on the social solidarity forged during the years of liberation struggle, the creation of a national education system has been given utmost priority by the political leadership (Institute for Democracy in South Africa, 1994). Education policy under the EPLF before 1993 was being guided by a holistic ‘social-demand-approach’ (Tesfaldet, 1992, p. 20). The EPLF had occupied parts of Northern Eritrea as early as the late 1970s and acted as de-facto government in this area. It was there that a parallel system of education was put into practice in the Revolution School, a system loosely based on the principles of liberatory pedagogy (Freire, 1998; Hale, 2000). Since liberation, however, the focus has shifted more and more towards a ‘manpower-demand-approach’ (Tesfaldet, 1992, p. 20) and an ambitious strategy to build human capital, a move demonstrating the government’s narrowing focus on economic modernization (Stefanos, 1997). The latest Eritrean strategic policy document states as the main objectives of education policy ‘to produce a population equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge and culture for a […] modern economy’ (Government of the State of Eritrea, 1994, p. 39). One objective of the Eritrean HRD strategy is to strike ‘a happy balance between the technical and the academic line’ (Osman Saleh, Minister of Education, interview 20 March 2001). At present, the majority of secondary education takes place in the academic line, so a first step is to have more technical and vocational secondary education. As far as higher education is concerned, after secondary school, students ‘should go to junior colleges [none of these exists yet] and only a very small number of students will go to the university for their degree’ (interview, 20 March 2001).3 With education becoming more widespread, it remains to be seen whether not more pressure will build up to expand academic secondary and university education. Experiences in most African countries which achieved independence in the 1960s have shown that an expansion in primary education almost automatically creates demand for an expansion of secondary and eventually post-secondary education
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(Eisemon & Schwille, 1991). Higher education in particular is seen as the main vehicle for social mobility, because it makes possible ‘the acquisition of a well-paid job in the modern sector’ (Ergas, 1982, p. 571). A number of countries tried schemes similar to the one outlined by Osman Saleh over the years and failed (Fa¨gerlind & Saha, 1983). Especially in the area of making secondary education more vocational, they had to realize that students preferred academic secondary education (Psacharopoulos, 1993). The role of higher education within the national HRD strategy broadly follows the pattern advocated by Thompson and Fogel (1976) for educational development in developing countries, in which higher education is strongly embedded into the national community as a whole instead of being an elitist institution which is removed from the realities of the majority of the population. The role of the university herein is that of a ‘developmental university’ (Coleman, 1994, p. 334), an institution first and foremost concerned with the “solution” of the concrete problems of societal development’ (Coleman, 1994, p. 334). Such a university sets out to ‘ensure that the development plans of the university are integrated with or linked to national development plans’ (Coleman, 1994, p. 343). This is exactly how Dr Wolde-Ab Yisak, the president of the UoA, cites the mission of the UoA: ‘We [the university] should play a leading role in the process of nation-building and social transformation’ (interview 13 June 2001). Within the centralized HRD planning in Eritrea, this has certain implications for the workings of the university: after having passed the matriculation exam, subjects of study are allocated, and students’ priorities are given only cursory concern in this process. Dr Wolde-Ab Yisak, together with all the ministries, draws up a list showing in which areas human resources are most urgently needed. According to these predictions, it is then decided how many students should be admitted to which department.4 For postgraduate studies the university draws up staff development plans and facilitates to send students abroad for education at Master’s or Ph.D. level. In that way it hopes to assure that the country’s human resources are used in the most efficient way. The success of such a strategy depends largely on a shared vision between the goals of the official policy side, embodied by the government and the university administration on one hand, and the people, the individual students, on the other. Without such a shared vision ‘brain drain’, which plagues many African countries that see their university graduates leave for the industrialized world where salaries are considerably higher, is difficult to avoid. The Eritrean government claims as one of its major assets that the cornerstone of ‘the culture of governance in Eritrea is the close relationship between the people and the leadership’ (Ministry of Education, 1999, p. 3). But education, whether envisaged as such or not, is a multidimensional concept, encompassing possible contradictions between the individual and the common good: Education is on one hand strongly related to one’s position in a given society, and acts ‘as an agent for the reproduction of the social order’ (Fa¨gerlind & Saha, 1983, p. 195). On the other hand, it relates to new forms of agency on an individual level. In doing so, it can act as a catalyst for women’s emancipation. Women’s
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emancipation is understood here as women’s ability to make strategic life choices that they have not been able to make in the past (Kabeer, 1999), while at the same time incorporating the societal values embedded in that choice. In line with the Eritrean discourse, the term ‘emancipation’ is used instead of the term ‘empowerment’ used by Kabeer. Different perspectives exist as to what these terms mean in concrete. Here, women’s emancipation is considered within the existing social structures, not as by necessity involving the transformation of ‘patriarchal society’ (Longwe, 1997, p. 17), the latter at present not being relevant to the Eritrean case (Mu¨ller, 2003). As such, emancipation is conceived of as a dynamic process in which arising forms of gender oppression are overcome. It is a very personal concept, meaning different things to different women (Stefanos, 1997). I will now turn to these women.
‘Now I am free’—the stories of Elmi and Fatima Joining the university from the perspective of Eritrean development planning defines a student as somebody being trained to fill a perceived human resource need in the future. Elmi (all names are changed for reasons of confidentiality) is a student in a social science subject. For her family the cultural tradition of early marriage is of great importance. Elmi’s two older sisters were married at the age of 14. Elmi herself was a good student, and interested in her education from grade one. Nevertheless, her parents tried three times to arrange for her to get married. It was by chance that she avoided the fate of her sisters. Then, in grade ten, two students from her school had the opportunity to participate in an exchange programme with a school abroad. Elmi was chosen. Her parents agreed to let her participate in this programme as no prospective husband was in sight. ‘This changed my life forever’, she says now. After her return she was more committed than ever to continue her education, and her parents grew to accept it. She got to the university with good grades. Her father is now proud of her. And the family’s attitude towards education has changed: Elmi’s three school-age sisters, the oldest in grade seven, are encouraged to perform well in their education. While eventually the question of marriage will resurface, for now Elmi has other plans: she wants to continue for a Master’s. She stands a good chance of being sent by the university. ‘Now I am free, my family cannot force me to marry if I do not want to’ (interview, 23 October 2000). What made her ‘free’ was, in her own judgement, the fact that she went to university; only then was it certain that her parents would not arrange another marriage for her. Fatima is someone else who became free to follow her ambitions after having been able to attend university. While her parents did always support her education, after graduation they want her to get married. Fatima, however, is determined to go for further studies. ‘If I don’t get at least my Master’s, I will not have the chance to do the work I would like to do here’, she says. She is confident that her parents will let her leave eventually. ‘The greatest important thing in my life was that I could go to this university’ (interview, 07 May 2001). That was the window that opened up all
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the other possibilities for her future and gave her the freedom to not just follow her parents’ wishes but become an actor in her own right on how to lead her life. Both these stories show that for these women going to university means something different from simply a future career. They do not see their stay at the UoA primarily in terms of enhancing their skill level or playing an important part in the reconstruction of their country, but as a personal life strategy which allows them a freedom of choice they would otherwise not have. Both women, however, at the same time developed the ambition to continue their education—on the face of it in acceptance of the government’s plan for their future. When anticipating their wider future, however, resistance to this agenda might develop as other issues (such as marriage) become of prime importance. It might well be that eventually they will have to negotiate their career with their prospective husbands or encounter altogether different trade-offs, as marriage is not the only contentious issue for women at university. ‘We don’t have private life …’—the individual versus HRD planning5 Elmi was lucky, not only in avoiding the marriage ambitions of her parents, but also in her university career: she was allowed to study her subject of choice. Sitting in the tea-room of the UoA, one topic surfaces regularly in students’ conversations: how to avoid becoming a teacher. Often, when students are denied their first choice of subject, they are put into the Secondary School Teachers (SST) department. Equally, many students who study applied sciences are sent into teaching. This is due to the university operating according to the following system: most degree courses require four years of academic study, after which students have to complete one year of university national service. They are allocated to a relevant Ministry and work for a symbolic salary. Only after students have completed this service year will they graduate. Most students in applied science subjects are sent to secondary schools to teach. Students resist becoming teachers in all sorts of ways. That is, for example, why Sultan chose plant science. ‘When I joined the university, I really wanted to study medicine, but in freshman my marks were low’, she explains. She could have gone for biology and continued in the medical field from there, ‘but at the college of science they will make you to become a teacher’. She hated the idea of teaching, so she chose plant science (a subject for which her grade point average (GPA) was enough), ‘and also some medicine is made of plants, so there is some connection’ (interview, 11 October 2000). In general, when students know their freshman GPA is too low to join their department of choice, they settle for a compromise with the objective of resisting becoming a teacher. This overregulation of educational opportunities not only implies a lack of personal choices, but equally a lack of decisionmaking power over one’s future, as Hannah explains: We don’t have private life … whenever you decided something there are a lot of things you have to consider … even if I get a scholarship […] my going out is not sure […] now I can decide minor things, but for the future … our future is trapped, limited … you have to get permission from the government to do whatever you want … I
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This is the other side of a policy that centres strictly on perceived human resource needs of the country. The university in general does not encourage people to get their own scholarships, but wants them to be sent through university channels. The attitude expressed by Hannah, being willing to accept certain drawbacks in one’s individual life as part of what being Eritrean means, surfaces in different ways in the lives of different people. This is an attitude which has been described as an outcome of the EPLF’s successful endeavour in forging an Eritrean nation (Schamanek, 1998; Ottaway, 1999). The story of Mehret, who grew up with the EPLF in the Revolution School and was thus socialized within its culture, demonstrates particularly well the different trade-offs potentially faced by young Eritreans at the UoA and how she grew to accept them.
Mehret—child of the revolution Mehret was one year old when her parents decided to join the liberation struggle. Her mother took her to the liberated areas, where she grew up first in a children’s home and later in the Revolution School. She finished schooling after grade seven and was assigned to teach children in grades one and two. It was only after liberation that Mehret could continue her education while still working as a teacher. She completed secondary schooling successfully in 1995, determined to join the university. After a year of pleading her release from teaching duties with the Ministry of Education (accepting the legitimacy of the Ministry’s claim on her service), she was finally allowed to join the UoA. That in itself did not end all the frustrations for Mehret, but it did change her attitude on how to deal with them: When I completed my freshman studies I wished to join geology, and I had the grade to join, but I was told I must join this educational faculty, I was not happy […] at that time, the students in the faculty of education had a meeting with Dr Wolde-Ab, there were many who didn’t like this faculty and they were asking him questions […] in one of his speeches he said ‘you know you are intending to study something and you are finding obstacles, at this time what we are doing is we are preparing for the needs of the country, not for the needs of you, so if you are … brilliant enough and if you are strong, you don’t become successful through finding all your needs but it’s how do you become successful even if there are obstacles, that’s what makes you strong people’ […] and that influenced me, I can say … most of the time I was rigid, I am going to do this, this and this, if not, I become frustrated, but from then onward I want to say ‘I’m going to do my best and work as hard as I can in the area which I am exposed to, then I am going to try as successful as I can to continue with the chances I can get’ … so that’s the way which I prefer to go. (interview, 13 October 2000)
Mehret, while accepting the institutional plan for her life, developed an approach to overcome her own powerlessness and use it to find individual fulfilment. This approach still guides her life. Mehret had for a long time dreamed of continuing her
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studies in biology, preferably genetics. But while preparing to go abroad for further study, she explains why she thinks differently about that now: I have to complete my Master’s, and hopefully also Ph.D. some day … but I want to come back and live and work here in my country, do something useful, so there is no point for me going to study genetics, as I can do my research abroad, that’s fine, but when I am back here, there are no facilities for this kind of research, I can only read things from books and search the Internet, that is a bit pointless and boring … so I had to change my focus, I will have to do something where I can carry out research activities here, so I will try to do my Master’s in something related to educational biology or early-childhood development, as this is a problem in Eritrea. (interview, 26 May 2001)
How Mehret and her fellow students come to accept the obstacles put into their way seems on the face of it to vindicate the EPLF’s claim about the ‘closeness between the leadership and the people’; or observations like Ottaway’s that within the Eritrean population, in spite of frustrations, people are willing to go along with great interference in their personal lives as long as it helps the overall development of the country (Ottaway, 1999). Does this mean that the present student generation will largely follow the script written by the political leadership for their future lives? Not quite, as the following section will reveal. ‘I want a good job’ … ambitions for what kind of future? When asked about their longer-term future, the women in this study all came up with very personal visions of what they are trying to achieve. Three issues feature prominently in these visions: the well-being of one’s (extended) family; to continue with further studies (or alternatively start a business); and, eventually, to marry and have a family of one’s own. A majority of participants mentioned as one of their first priorities after graduation helping their families financially. Sarah puts it like this: ‘When I finish my BA degree, I will work for at least two years and help my parents […] after that, maybe I will decide for myself’ (interview, 18 October 2000). The same is true for Esther: ‘I always feel so [responsible for my family], even it forced me to have good results in my [studies] … because that is the only way to join a good job then help my parents, after that I then go to my own life’ (interview, 08 November 2000). Together with supporting one’s family financially, being able to continue their education or start their own business is the prime ambition for the majority of participants. Simret is a law graduate. Her father is a successful consultant in this field, and she wants to follow in his footsteps: ‘I don’t want anything, also not marriage, to interfere into my career life […] I like to work and besides, I do not want to be dependent on anyone, I like to be dependent on myself only’ (interview, 4 December 2000). Equally determined to have her own business is Samira, a graduate in accounting and management, who says ‘I do not mind doing [university] service for free for one or two years, I feel I want to give my country something’. As such, she is accepting the obligation to contribute to the communal good, but after that, ‘I want to continue with my business plans, probably start some import-export business’ (interview, 31 October 2000). This strong vision of an individual pro-
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fessional career is otherwise rare to find. The majority of women have a rather vague notion of the ‘good job’ they wish to have in the future, which is regarded very much as being related to the possibility of continuing their education. Rahel describes the need to continue one’s education: ‘Everyone is getting the BA degree […] so you have to be different, that’s Master’s degree or Ph.D. degree’ (interview, 24 October 2000). Similar concerns are voiced by Esther, who says ‘because nowadays, everybody is trying to have MA, then I will be the lower one … and therefore, I have to have MA as well’ (interview, 08 November 2000). Even with all the restrictions that may lie ahead, all women said they only wanted to go abroad for education but not to live there, ‘especially when you are educated, you have a very good life here’ (Hannah, 6 November 2000) (see also Pessate-Schubert, 2003). In that sense, the Eritrean HRD strategy seems to have been successful thus far in building up human capital in Eritrea. Even though many of today’s students at the UoA might tomorrow not work in the particular field they were educated for (and thus in certain areas shortages in human capital might persist for some time to come), and in spite of their very individualist, material, careerist and conventional ambitions for the future, what does unite the participants as Eritreans is the fact that they see their future connected to their country. They accept their social obligation to serve the wider community. Very few participants would take individual career ambitions or advancement thus far as to be considering leaving and joining the diaspora. In contrast, many feel they want to contribute something to the development of Eritrea, as the examples of Almaz and Rahel show. I want to return to Eritrea … there are no archaeologists in Eritrea, I mean what is the benefit of this university training archaeology students and no one is returning back […] so I want to really work here in Eritrea. (Almaz, 22 November 2000)
In a similar spirit, Rahel wants to return after having completed her postgraduate education abroad: I will come back […] other than bringing Indian teachers to this university, you can do it yourself, and if you get educated and you came here you … are getting some kind of growth and development in your life, also if you came here you help your country to develop … both of you [you and your country] are getting advantage. (Rahel, 24 October 2000)
Among the interviewees, only two felt they would eventually like to leave Eritrea: Azieb and Rihab. Whereas Azieb cites notions of personal freedom from cultural restrictions as her motivation to leave, freedom for Rihab is strongly related to the political: But in my field, in political science, I don’t know if our government is going to give us a chance to participate in actual political activities … they have to realise … they can’t rule the country forever, there must be elections, but I don’t know, is it going to happen […] I don’t want to live here for my kids in the future, I want them to grow up more easy […] maybe Eritrea is going to be good, it’s a matter of time […] maybe if some change, or a miracle happens to Eritrea I would like to stay here. (Rihab, 26 April 2001)
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Table 1. Survey respondents by long term plans and sex (multiple responses possible) In ‘ten years time’ I want to/No. of students
Female
Male
Total
Work in academia Work for the government Work in the private sector Work abroad Stay at home and have a family of my own Have a family and continue my career Missing
17 29 85 34 3 80 1
45 35 96 46 11 55 1
62 64 181 80 14 135 n/a
Source: Survey Data, SPSS Spreadsheet.
This last statement points to the fact that while in terms of human capital development the centralized development strategy of the Eritrean government in the area of formal education might be regarded as successful, for social solidarity within Eritrean society the implications might be different. Personal freedom is the main issue in these minority statements—and resistance to restrictions of that freedom might become more important in the future, if the Eritrean government fails to offer to its people the opportunities they desire. The ultimate resistance for a university student to the government’s plan, and with it, a rejection of showing social solidarity, is exercised in leaving the country and depriving it from the benefits the investment in a student’s education should have brought. A movement towards a higher propensity to actually do so can be seen in the survey results. Among the respondents, 80 out of a total of 357 aspire to work and live abroad. While this is still a relatively low number, it is cause for concern. Dr Wolde-Ab Yisak, the university president, feels that while graduates leaving the country has not been a problem up to now, it could become one in the future: ‘I think before the conflict with the Ethiopians [referring to the 1998–2000 Eritreo-Ethiopian border war], the return rate was more than 85 percent … now after the conflict [started], lots of people have tried to find excuses, so our return rate has been lower than fifty [per cent]’ (interview, 13 June 2001). Another indicator of this tendency could be witnessed during the summer of 2001 at the UoA: university students were suddenly told to do two months of additional national service during the summer vacation. For the first time in Eritrea’s history, they refused. Eventually, the student leader was arrested and the students ‘voluntarily’ went to a work-camp in the desert. On the surface, after they had returned and the 2001/2002 academic year had started, things were quiet. But in private conversations, for many the only direction if things do not change is ‘to get out’.
Some conclusions The tensions experienced in the lives of the students at the UoA can be seen in three areas: central HRD planning in Eritrea, ambitions including ideas about self-realiza-
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tion, and tradition in a broad sense (the latter mainly an issue for women, particularly visible in early marriage traditions). For the women in higher education in this study new possibilities for personal agency emerged. Their lives, in showing a combination of acceptance of and resistance to the government’s plans for them, are characterized by pragmatic attempts to fulfil their personal ambitions, ambitions often in sharp contrast to the ‘official strategy’ of which they are nevertheless a part. For the time being, the majority aspire to make their higher education work for them personally and as Eritrean women. The future questions to be addressed are whether the nation-centred education policies pursued by the Eritrean government in the context of its HRD strategy can succeed in a global world where opportunities for social mobility abound (at least for qualified young people with a university degree); and what consequences these policies might have for the level of social solidarity within Eritrean society. What can be witnessed in Eritrea is partly the result of a shift in the way education is conceptualized within the process of development. In shifting from a ‘social-demand approach’ to a ‘manpower-demand-approach’ the Eritrean government overlooks the fact that this will transform the values of Eritrean society towards more individualist ambitions. While a social-demand approach towards education entails the notion of cultivating social solidarity and forging national citizenship, a manpower-demand approach views education predominantly as a factor in advancing the nation in terms of international competitiveness. Overall, the HRD strategy pursued by the Eritrean government is in line with the human capital approach, the bottom line of which regards education as an investment which will eventually lead to increased productivity to benefit individuals and ultimately society. Education is herein seen as a panacea for development, which in increasing human capital will lead to other developmental gains. The future ambitions of the participants in this research show that this view of education is highly contentious. An education system geared predominantly towards and succeeding in the creation of human capital might (or perhaps even necessarily will) do so at the expense of social solidarity, the latter arguably a more important asset in many developing countries. Notes 1.
2.
The concepts of acceptance and resistance are borrowed from a model describing processes of change towards women’s empowerment by Stacki and Monkman (2003). While Stacki and Monkman assert that acceptance (they use the term ‘accommodation’) halts processes of change, and add a third category, pro-action, I regard acceptance and resistance as two different ways to exert agency and facilitate change. 29 female students in year 4 or 5 at the UoA from the following subjects: accounting, animal science, archaeology, civil engineering, economics, educational administration, geography, history, journalism and mass communication, law, marine biology and fisheries, medical laboratory technician, pharmacy, plant science, political science, sociology and anthropology, soil and water conservation, SST-biology, SST-chemistry, SST-English, SST-geography, SST-history, SST-physics, were interviewed between October 2000 and May 2001.
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4.
5.
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In fact, with the UoA being the only university in the country, the gross enrolment ratio for tertiary education is 2% only (World Bank, 2000); since independence, on average 14% of students at the UoA have been women (Registrar’s Office, UoA, 2001). At present the UoA offers Bachelor degrees in the following areas: agriculture and aquatic sciences, arts and social sciences, business and economics, science, health science, and education. Some of the issues discussed here apply to men and women alike. However, for women there is the added dimension of having to compete with men to gain access to subjects dominated by the latter (see Thomas, 1990).
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