Why the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland Failed: Lessons from the Brief History of a Regional University in Southern Africa

This article traces the establishment and development of the tripartite University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (UBLS), attempting to explain why it failed and the timing of that failure. I argue that the root causes lay in the nature of the Royal Charter that established it, its evolving governance system and disagreements about its direction of development. Issues such as racial conflict and the renewal of the vice chancellor's contract, which some observers have used to explain the break-up of the institution, were intended to conceal the real areas of conflict. This article places the discussion within the broader comparative context of higher education in the immediate post-independence period and concludes that the UBLS failed because of the strong insular nationalism of the BLS countries (i.e., Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland) combined with the absence of a spirit of regionalism similar to that found elsewhere in newly independent regions such as the Caribbean and the South Pacific. It thus provides a discussion of the necessary conditions for successful multi-country partnerships then and now, as well as problems to be avoided.