African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 927: Higher Education Big Deal

There is a reason why Goldvestan singled out the central agricultural region and Mozambique for discussion.

In East Africa, the biggest factor affecting agricultural distribution is actually precipitation. Among the nine major agricultural areas, except for the Mesopotamian region (Somalia), precipitation is basically above 400 mm, while precipitation in Mozambique and the central agricultural area is between 600 mm and 1,500 mm. Above that is the true tropical rainforest climate.

Generally speaking, the precipitation in tropical rainforest climate is over 2,000 mm all year round. Of course, the Congo rainforest in East Africa is an exception, where the precipitation is generally around 1,500 to 2,000 mm. In special circumstances and special areas, it may exceed 3,000 mm. For example, most areas of the Amazon rainforest are basically stable at over 2,000 mm.

Precipitation above 400 mm is suitable for developing agriculture, and above 800 mm is considered a humid zone. Therefore, the annual precipitation in East Africa that exceeds 800 mm, except for the tropical rainforest area, overlaps with the population and economic distribution of East Africa as a whole.

Areas like the Katanga Plateau and the Great Lakes region are humid areas adjacent to the tropical rainforest and are most suitable for agricultural cultivation. Although the Mozambique region is far away from the tropical rainforest, it has relatively abundant precipitation due to factors such as terrain.

Of course, among the nine major agricultural areas there is a special place called the Mesopotamian Basin. The reason why Somalia can be listed among the nine major agricultural areas is entirely due to its developed commodity agriculture. It is closest to the Eurasian market and its agricultural products are of excellent quality. Cotton and fruits and vegetables are the major exports.

"Dividing the country into these nine major agricultural regions basically means that East Africa's agricultural policies are tilted towards these regions. The focus is to vigorously promote mechanized farming models in these regions, and coordinate and unify management according to the agricultural characteristics of each region."

"Similarly, fertilizers, agricultural machinery, pesticides, repair shops and other industrial supporting facilities are mainly deployed in these areas to ensure my country's food security, improve production efficiency, reduce production costs, promote the modernization of my country's agriculture, and promote related technological progress."

This is the real reason. The fundamental reason why East Africa promotes agricultural reform is to drive the development of related industries, especially chemical, machinery manufacturing, automobile, tractor, petrochemical and other industries.

While carrying out agricultural reforms, we should also foster the development of these emerging industries in East Africa so that they can take root and grow. After all, although East Africa is not lagging behind the times in these areas for the time being, it will take a long-term approach to consolidate its position, relying on the accumulation of time and policies.

Ernst: "Industry and agriculture are inseparable, especially in East Africa, a large agricultural country that is undergoing transformation. There is no doubt that East Africa is still a backward agricultural country. Becoming a world power with initial industrialization is our goal in the next few decades."

“Although we have made some remarkable achievements in industrial development, we still have a long way to go compared with European and American countries.”

"In powerful countries like Europe and America, urbanization has exceeded 40 percent. The United Kingdom has exceeded 70 percent and is close to 80 percent. Germany has also reached about 50 percent. The average level in Europe, except for Tsarist Russia, is around 30 percent."

"According to our data over the past 20 years, the urbanization rate in East Africa has dropped from around 20 percent in the early 1980s to around 17 percent in the early 1990s, so East Africa's industrialization process still has a long way to go."

The reason why East Africa's urbanization level has regressed is not because East Africa's industrial development is slow, but because the speed of population growth in East Africa is too fast, which has slowed down the progress of industrialization.

Of course, the fact that it was able to reach 20 percent before was also related to East Africa’s outstanding performance during the world economic crisis in the 1970s.

Moreover, the total population of East Africa in the 1970s was far less than that in the 1990s, so the industrial scale represented by the 17% in the 1990s was far from comparable to the 20% in the 1980s.

The South African War was an important turning point. Before that, in addition to building its own economy, East Africa was also burdened by expanding its territory, focusing on developing military industry, developing the army, and ensuring national security. After the South African War, the focus of the East African government's work has been fully shifted to economic construction. In addition to overseas territorial expansion, East Africa's native territory has basically taken shape, and with the end of the South African War, East Africa's external threats have been lifted.

Therefore, in the 1990s, the focus of East Africa's work was to catch up with developed countries such as Europe and the United States. Of course, it was a pipe dream to catch up within ten years, but narrowing the gap between the two sides was Ernst's focus.

"By the end of this century, the urbanization level in East Africa should break through 20% again. At the same time, we should continue to exert our strength in various basic industrial fields, build a relatively complete industrial system, maintain East Africa's dominant position in emerging industries such as electricity and automobiles, expand and strengthen industries such as petroleum and chemicals, and focus on traditional industrial fields such as shipbuilding, steel, railways, and textiles."

"In the field of education, in the next three years, our country will build at least 100 colleges and universities according to administrative divisions, and become a new world academic and educational center."

Higher education has always been a shortcoming of East Africa, but the conditions for East Africa to build its own higher education are now mature. First of all, after decades of development, East Africa has accumulated sufficient high-level talents.

Secondly, after the administrative division adjustment, a number of new provincial capitals and cities will be born in East Africa, and educational resources will naturally be established with the development of these new cities.

According to Ernst's idea, each province should build at least three higher education institutions, giving priority to covering the fields of agriculture, industry and medical care. At the same time, a number of higher normal colleges should be established for teacher training.

As a result, East Africa's 45 provincial administrative regions, several key cities, and East Africa's new capital, Rhine, will not be enough without the establishment of hundreds of new higher education institutions.

This was definitely a leap forward for higher education in East Africa. As of 1897, there were only regular universities in East Africa, including higher vocational colleges, and they were concentrated in the central and eastern regions. There were of them in the east alone. Below that, there were only technical schools at the quasi-higher education level. The level of these technical schools was between technical colleges and East African technical schools, and they were not considered regular higher education colleges.

However, these "fake" technical schools have also played a major role in talent cultivation in East Africa, especially in the training of basic technical workers. The most famous of them is the Mbeya Electric Power Technical School.

This also shows the hard work that East Africa has put in the field of electricity. Among the universities in East Africa, the East African Electricity University enjoys the most abundant resources and the highest level. In addition to the TV University, the construction of related colleges is also the most complete. This is also an important reason why East Africa's power industry ranks first in the world.

Not only are there few higher education resources in East Africa, but they are also unevenly distributed. Of course, the uneven regional distribution cannot be blamed on the East African governments, after all, East Africa's territorial expansion is too fast.

Ernst went on to say, "Of course, in addition to the universities that were newly established in accordance with administrative adjustments, the state will focus on building a number of key disciplines and departments, covering industrial fields such as electricity, petroleum, chemicals, steel, textiles, automobiles, and ships. At the same time, medical, military, and theoretical fields will also be supplemented, as the vanguard and pioneer of my country's future scientific and technological development."

If international students are included, the number of college students in East Africa is actually not inferior to that of other countries. After this conference, East Africa's higher education will surpass other countries in scale.

Of course, the price of doing so is that it will certainly not be easy to improve the quality. In fact, compared with other countries, East Africa does not lack higher education talents, but top scientific and technological talents. Those who can promote scientific and technological progress on their own are the leading figures in each country.

Of course, there are such bigwigs in East Africa, but no country can have too many of them.

(End of this chapter)