| VI |
A VISION OF THE FUTURE AKU |
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1 |
The Original Vision and Needs for Changes in it
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The Commission was charged to review the overall vision'
of the Aga Khan University that was articulated in the 1983
Harvard Report and to suggest changes that now appear to be
appropriate or necessary". The foregoing Sections of this
Report have reviewed changes in higher education and scholarship,
in the world at large, and within AKDN and AKU itself; they
have provided bases for responding to our charge. Each Section
closed with an effort to discern implications for AKU's mission
and character from the changes it surveyed. We here draw together
these implications.
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1.1 |
The Harvard Report declared that the AKU needed to be "distinctive
in substance or quality or both" and that it ought not to be
a "big conventional university with the familiar array of schools
and faculties". We have found no reason in the changes we
have surveyed to depart from these conceptions. The developing
and Muslim worlds that AKU aims to serve continue to suffer
less from quantitative dearth than from poor quality in higher
education; the weaknesses of these worlds in research and scholarship
will not disappear in the coming two or three decades. We thus
conclude that : |
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AKU's contribution must be in high quality education directed
to well-selected needs. And an AKU making strong contributions
to research and scholarship would make it a distinctive and
specially valuable institution in the developing and Muslim
worlds. |
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1.2 |
Since AKU began, private education, both at higher and other
levels, has spread and won stronger favour in the developing
and Muslim worlds. AKU has been a pioneer in this movement
and has increased opportunities to serve as a model for private
higher education in the worlds of its particular concern. |
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1.3 |
Political changes in the world at large have brought
both very concrete and more diffuse consequences for what AKU
might aim to be. There have been such specific changes as the
emergenceg following on the dissolution of the USSR, of the
Central Asian Republics with their Muslims, including
Ismaili, populations; likewise there have been changes in
East Africa which have raised questions about the future
of AKU there; and in Pakistan political uncertainty and security
questions have continued to exist. More broadly, civil strife,
instability and other political ills have sharpened the questions
: What can AKU do to protect itself against political changes
and disorder ? And, more positively, can AKU make a significant
contribution to improved governance of countries in the
Third and Muslim worlds ? Some of these political changes will
affect specific recommendations made in later sections of our
report; in this section we shall need to consider policies and
designs that may protect the University from disruption, and,
further, if a concern with better governance can be a serious
part of the mission of AKU. |
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1.4 |
We have observed that conceptions of development and the developing
world have changed profoundly in recent years. But the ethical
and intellectual challenges of improving the lives of vast populations
have not lessened. Changes in the character of programmes will
be needed, but the basic vocation of AKU in the service of
development should not change. |
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1.5 |
Changes in the world since AKU began will continue in the
decades ahead and make AKU's role as a Muslim university
more important and challenging than it was in the beginning.
The world's Muslim population will grow impressively and its
spread in Europe and America will widen the relevance of AKU's
work beyond the developing countries. The rise of radical Islamic
movements and reactions to them, both within and outside the
Muslim world, also heightens the potential significance AKU
can have as a Muslim university. |
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1.6 |
The heightened importance of Islamic loyalties has been related
to the globalisation of contemporary life and the recognition
of multicultural variety it has stimulated. AKU, like other
educational institutions, faces challenges in bridging national,
religious and cosmopolitan identities, but also has an exceptional
opportunity as an authentic voice from the developing and Muslim
worlds. |
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1.7 |
Aga Khan University in the first ten years of its life
has been loyal to missions proposed for it by its Founder, its
Charter, and the Harvard Report. Its experience thus far has
brought no reason to change the vision of AKU as it was conceived
a decade and more ago. The multifarious needs in bringing
the School of Nursing, the Medical College, the hospital and
more recently, the Institute for Educational Development into
operation have naturally focused energies and resources on immediate
tasks in Karachi and Pakistan. But the international
vocation of AKU has not been forgotten or rejected by the leadership
and the staff of the University. Likewise, resources thus far
have not permitted as vigorous development of research as
the Harvard Report proposed, but its essential place alongside
education and service in the future AKU is fully recognised.
The eager participation of faculty and staff in meetings with
the Commission has shown a hopeful commitment to broad conceptions
of the future of AKU. |
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1.8 |
The review we have made of the programmes and future plans
of other parts of the Aga Khan Development Network and the Institute
of Ismaili Studies has given us a sharpened sense of the resources
and stimuli that AKU has from this family of institutions. The
text in Section V gives many examples of ways in which AKU's
opportunities are expanded by the work and accomplishments of
these other institutions; it also shows that AKU may meet needs
for education and research that these institutions generate
but are not equipped to meet themselves. We in the Chancellor's
Commission have been closer to AKDN and IIS than the Harvard
Committee was and have a livelier sense that one important element
in the vision of the future AKU is that it does not stand
alone but is part of a mutually reinforcing network of Aga Khan
institutions that magnify its potential and influence its programmes
at any given time. |
