African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 928 The Army Makes Way
Logans: "This time, our city has added five key schools in one go, namely the New Frankfurt University of Technology, the New Frankfurt Institute of Light Industry, the New Frankfurt Institute of Electrical Engineering, the New Frankfurt Institute of Textile Industry, and the New Frankfurt Institute of Automotive Repair."

At the beginning of the education reform, the city of New Frankfurt was stunned by the central government's big plan. As a relatively young city in East Africa, New Frankfurt did not even have a university before, but this time it added four at once. As the mayor, Logans was very excited.

The reason why there are four schools is that the fifth one, the New Frankfurt Automotive Repair College, does not belong to the category of higher education, but its appearance in the list at least shows that it is a key school of the same type as the Mbeya Electric Power Technical School.

"In recent years, our city of New Frankfurt has been developing at a fast pace, but it is much behind cities of the same level in education. Now that national policies have been implemented, this problem has been immediately solved. In terms of the number of colleges and universities to be built, it has already ranked among the top cities in East Africa," said Loggens.

You should know that Soga and First Town, where higher education is most concentrated in East Africa, have only ten universities in total, and Mbeya has only three universities, but its laboratories and research institutions are among the best in East Africa.

Of course, the ability to obtain such generous treatment is inseparable from the advantages of the city of New Frankfurt. The most important point is that the city is the heart of the East African Railway, and it is convenient for students from all directions to study here.

The second influencing factor is the rise of Rhine City. As the future capital of East Africa, it must have the most concentrated educational resources.

Because this time Ernst did not plan to build a specialized academic city like Soga City, but instead let Rhine City directly serve as the East African education, scientific research and academic center.

However, as the capital of a country, it is not best for all universities to be concentrated in Rhineland-Palatinate, especially for some engineering majors, which are better placed in cities with corresponding industrial distribution.

Among them, the new city of Frankfurt will take over some light industrial projects or educational resources corresponding to advantageous industries.

First of all, the Technical University goes without saying. Although the industry of the new city of Frankfurt tends to be light industry, it does not hinder its status as an important industrial city in East Africa.

New Frankfurt is also one of East Africa's power equipment manufacturing centers and automobile assembly industry centers. Benefiting from its status as a transportation hub, New Frankfurt is also East Africa's national cotton distribution center. It has come from behind in the textile industry and is now second only to Nairobi and Bulawayo.

The only drawback of New Frankfurt is that its mineral resources are relatively scarce. However, there is the copper mining belt in the north, the industrial base of East Africa in the south, and the scientific research center of Mbeya in the east. Its geographical location is quite clever.

Of course, compared to the new Frankfurt city, other cities in East Africa have also benefited greatly from this education reform. According to the content of this education reform, each provincial capital city in East Africa must have at least three higher education institutions in the next three years. In addition to the provincial capitals, there are also a number of key cities in East Africa that can get a piece of the pie.

The most eye-catching of these is undoubtedly the new capital of East Africa, Rhine City, where the first batch of planned colleges and universities will be as high as 20, and the types of universities are the most complete in East Africa.

As we all know, education in East Africa emphasizes liberal arts over science, so in the past, liberal arts higher education in East Africa was basically nonexistent. Of course, this does not explain how good science and engineering higher education is in East Africa. At least before this education reform, higher education resources in East Africa were extremely scarce, and the previous forty-three universities were truly a case of too many wolves and too little meat.

However, there is no way around it. East Africa's education has accumulated a lot of experience and it took decades of continuous influx of international students to accumulate enough talent needed for higher education teaching.

In the new round of allocation of educational resources, the city of New Frankfurt is certainly dazzling if compared with the previous higher education in East Africa, but it is not so prominent when other regions and departments are establishing higher education.

In addition to distributing educational resources according to cities and industries, this school-running trend actually involves the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Energy, and the Ministry of Defense. At the same time, a number of existing quasi-higher education schools were also upgraded, merged, and closed in this reform. Among them, the Mbeya City Electric Power Technical School was upgraded to the Mbeya City Electric Power University. The merged schools were concentrated in the old industrial cities in East Africa, and there were very few schools that were closed. In fact, the closing and merging echoed each other, and a more accurate term should be reorganization.

……

"This time, our Ministry of Education and other departments have listed a total of 172 institutions, which basically cover all industries, agriculture and other fields."

In accordance with Ernst's requirements, the East African government, after detailed discussions and research, determined a new situation for higher education in East Africa.

However, the number of 172 universities still shocked Ernst. After all, according to his original idea, it would be a lot if the number of higher education institutions in East Africa exceeded 100. But the list provided by the government obviously exceeded expectations by a large margin, and was almost close to 200.

Of course, after reading the government plan carefully, Ernst believes that this list is not only reasonable, but it cannot meet all the needs of East Africa. The demand for education in various departments and cities is relatively strong. If we look at the East African government departments and provincial administrative regions, 172 universities may seem like a lot, but in fact they are not enough.

Of course, it is impossible for East Africa to become rich overnight. If the number is increased, it will obviously exceed the capacity of the current East African government. After all, the education funding in East Africa is limited.

East Africa's investment in education has actually exceeded that of other countries in the same period. After this reform, it may even exceed the military expenditure of the Wehrmacht Army in 1890. After all, East Africa's education covers a wide range, including primary and secondary compulsory education. If university is added, it will definitely be a heavy burden for the East African government.

Of course, the military expenditure of the East African Army is now growing at a rapid rate. Especially after the formulation of the motorized army strategy, the East African Army is in a period of equipment replacement. However, this process is relatively long and is estimated to be completed within the first decade of the next century.

Therefore, the East African government is now in a state of being short of money. Industrial and agricultural construction, military construction, and education construction all require money, and they would like to split a Rhine Shield in half.

Currently, East Africa is able to support the construction of 172 universities, which has fully demonstrated the superiority of East Africa's social system.

Of course, although 172 universities is a lot, they include the original 43 universities in East Africa, so the number of newly established universities in East Africa should be 129, and the funding for higher education has directly quadrupled.

"Okay, let's implement it according to this list! After all, education is a long-term investment. We may not see any benefits now, but we cannot ignore it. Moreover, the external military pressure in East Africa is weak now, so in the case of tight financial conditions, we can appropriately slow down the development of the army. There is no need to invest all in mechanization. After all, the speed of technological updates is not slow, and the same is true for the navy. In a few years, there may be new warships that surpass the current battleships, so there must be some limits on military reform."

Ernst's words basically mean that military development has given way to education. After all, the East African Army was not considered backward, while the Navy waited until the advent of the dreadnought era, and now these advanced warships are basically no different from scrap metal.

Furthermore, East Africa's geographical location makes it difficult to be threatened militarily, so the dream of a strong military can be slowed down a bit. It would be better to allocate more military funds to support the future development of East Africa's science, technology and culture.

(End of this chapter)