MANAGEMENT AND COMMERCE Forging partnerships for excellence - The role of the African University Professor Willie Chinyamurindi for the role of universities on the continent in the pursuit of economic and political liberation. Key to his argument is the need for Africa- Africa partnerships. According to Professor Chinyamurindi, during the Covid-19 pandemic, technology allowed collaborations to emerge and thrive when travel and in- person meetings were impossible. Post pandemic, the uncertainties that have emerged across the world mean that it is important that these technology-driven collaborations continue. In Professor Chinamurindi’s opinion, The newly formed Human Capital Management research in Africa the situation remains interest group at Mulungushi University in Zambia ominous and attention to three foci is n important influence on understanding of the way indigenous needed to allow the continent to fulfil the thinking of Professor knowledge systems had been set its potential. Firstly, universities need AWillie Chinyamurindi of aside in order to privilege Western to contribute to the development the Department of Business ‘science’, a point taken up by those of a skilled workforce of a world- Management is the late Ali Mazrui, the arguing for the decolonization of the class standard. The training of this Kenyan born thinker who advocated universities in South Africa today. workforce has to be focused on for a transformed role for African Also central to his arguments was the ability to solve local challenges. universities in the liberation of the the role African universities needed This is especially important in the African. Mazrui was an ardent critic to play in changing the material context of the Fourth Industrial of Western economic systems and conditions of African people. For Revolution. The development of saw African universities as serving Mazrui, the universities are part of a skilled workforce will need to be these systems and their offshoots. the economic and political liberation accompanied by talent management In an age where globalization has of the continent itself. programmes. Remuneration will also seen universities across the world need attention if the so called ‘brain moving towards one vision of what Professor Chinyamurindi, well known drain’ involving the loss of African they could and should be, Mazrui because of his travels throughout intellectual capacity to Western was at the forefront of some of the Africa funded by the National economies is to be halted. critiques of higher education that are Institute for the Humanities and A second priority for Professor only emerging elsewhere now. Social Sciences’ (NIHSS) African Chinamurindi is investment in Pathways Programme, has taken up technologies and universities. The Key to Mazrui’s thinking was an Mazrui’s ideas in work making a case 45 | University of Fort Hare