University's catalytic effect in engendering local development drives: insight into the instrumentality of community-based service learning

Mbah, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4199-0819 and Fonchingong, C, 2019. University's catalytic effect in engendering local development drives: insight into the instrumentality of community-based service learning. Journal of Sustainable Development, 12 (3), pp. 22-34. ISSN 1913-9063

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Abstract

The context of this paper is Africa, where communities have historically looked up to universities within their locality to maximize their intellectual capital and knowledge creation to foster regional development. How well these universities are actively responding to the demands of economic and social development require attention. This paper reports an instrumental case study involving in-depth interviews and focus groups within a bounded locality in Cameroon to address what universities can do to enhance their contribution to local development. Findings suggest that whilst a university’s community-based service learning (CBSL) scheme can be ascertained as an instrument that can engender local development, this requires the fostering of relevant education for informed participation of different stakeholders in the framing but also firming up of CBSL objectives and processes. Furthermore, in order to optimize the prospect for local development instigated by CBSL activities, relevant stakeholders should go beyond short-term planning and adopt futuristic sustainable strategies. There is need to promote deeper dissemination, as well as follow-up on field findings for sustained implementation and outcomes.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Sustainable Development
Creators:	Mbah, M. and Fonchingong, C.
Publisher:	Canadian Center of Science and Education
Date:	2019
Volume:	12
Number:	3
ISSN:	1913-9063
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.5539/jsd.v12n3p22 DOI
Rights:	Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Divisions:	Schools > School of Education
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	24 Jun 2019 13:38
Last Modified:	24 Jun 2019 13:38
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/36909

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