Science in Africa and in South Africa: A Historical Review

Despite holding rich resources of minerals, metals and oil, most of the African continent remains poor. Forty-five per cent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is extremely poor (Burns et al., 2006). Education indicators in Sub-Saharan Africa are also well below the average of developed nations. The region provides higher education to just 3.5 per cent of the college-age population as against 60 per cent in developed nations (Zeleza, 2002). Science and scientific research in Africa need to be looked at against the background of this grim reality. Worthington, in his monumental work Science in the Development of Africa (1958), captures the situation of science in Africa: In the 1920s, there were few scientists and not much was done for them … In the 1930s conditions were beginning to improve, but nearly all science was on a territorial and isolated basis … In the 1940s many organizations took shape, especially designed to enable scientific men and women to do good work. In the 1950s the territorial and regional barriers are breaking down through inter-African cooperation. By the 1960s we may see African science taking its full and proper place in the development of the continent. (Worthington, 1958, cited in Keay, 1976: 88)