Why should a nation invest in her people obtaining higher education? Of what value is university education? Is it just titles? Better jobs? What?
That's basically the question that W.E.B Dubois answers in his seminal work The Souls of black folk. Since the book was published in the second-last century, it's in public domain on the internet. We will be discussing chapter one "Of our spiritual strivings," and chapter three "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and others."
The second reading is Mahmood Mamdani's article "The Importance of research in a university." Mamdani is also concerned about what PhDs have ended up being in Africa, and addresses the question: what should African PhD students learn? The link to the article is here.
Remember to post your comments and questions by Thursday 7pm.
