Kenneth is a Visiting Fellow at IDSA from mid-January to mid-April 2018. The focus of his work is India’s human resource collaboration with Africa. He is accompanied by his wife, Pravina.

Background

Kenneth King was Director of the Centre of African Studies and Professor of International and Comparative Education at Edinburgh University for many years. He is now Emeritus Professor in its Schools of Education and of Social and Political Studies.

His research has focused on the politics and history of international education, aid policy, and skills development, especially in the informal sector. He edited NORRAG News for 30 years until 2017.

Since 2006, amongst other research, he has analysed China’s educational aid to Africa, and published China’s Aid and Soft Power in Africa (2013).

From 2016 he has begun to research India’s development cooperation with Africa, with a focus on skills and human resource development.

His next book is on Education, Skills and International Cooperation: Comparative and Historical Perspectives (forthcoming 2018).

Research questions during the Fellowship

How, historically, has the discourse around human resource development for Africa shifted in Indian domestic debates and documentation over the last more than fifty years?

How have these shifts been accommodated institutionally in the main modalities of India-Africa cooperation within India? To what extent do these now constitute forms of cultural diplomacy or soft power?

Given that India-Africa cooperation falls within the discourse of South-South Cooperation, mutual benefit and mutual learning - and is not a one-way aid relationship - what is being learnt by both sides in this people-to-people engagement?