That Kenyan universities are losing glory having failed to create jobs through their graduates is not a secret anymore.
An increased number of academic stars are giving them a wide berth after secondary school while choosing diploma courses.
According to the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS), the number of candidates who attained the university-entry grade but opted for polytechnics went up by 107 percent in the latest selection.
Among them A-scorers, 2,632 candidates preferred diploma to degree, rising from 1,269 a year earlier.
For a long time, the wishes that university graduates should create jobs have remained mere dreams. Why?
For decades, Kenyan universities have been accused of being too rigid in terms of course selection whereby a student finds himself in a faculty he did not choose or have interest, too academic in methodology, too elitist at its aims, and too obsessed with the notion that people are equal and should be subjected to same opportunities.
Indeed, they are too uninterested in economic development, too unconcerned with the quality of teaching and specifically its intensity, too theoretical to relate with employers and industries, too rooted in old disciplines to respond to market forces and often too expensive for the less fortunate.
Therefore, it should not be misconstrued that people dropping university chances is a new phenomenon.
No, this has been there but was the preserve of
a few who realised ahead of the masses that Kenyan universities were losing
lustre and relevance when student
population went up exponentially at a time good lecturers were leaving the
country for greener pastures. It was called ‘brain drain’.
For how do you explain a graduate teacher who will wait for government employment
for more than 10 years while a certificate holder in a field like pharmacy or building
construction gets a job immediately after graduation?
So, while universities were expanding only in buildings and charters, the polytechnics were deserted, allowing the few students there to access practical lessons and tutors for close consultation.
Because universities had been associated with success, everybody embraced degrees, not realising that the cheese, so to speak, had been moved.
It became worse when postgrad diplomas, as practical as they are, were phased out to usher in Master’s that attracted workers eyeing promotions or greener pastures instead of knowledge.
As the Master’s classes were brimming with
people under the parallel classes, patronised by malaise-heavy workers who
enrolled for evening classes, the jobs became inaccessible due to head-hunting
or they migrated to alumni circles.
So, while university degrees and higher qualifications are necessary, in Kenya,
they became mere emblems and were not tied to intrinsic educational ambitions,
values, and aspirations of students who lost independence to societal whims.
What do people want? Is it not value, relevance, jobs, and happiness? There is a need to change tack to be useful in the society.
However, in all this, Kenyans ought not to migrate from university training to the TVET centres.
While it is likely because of a possible copycat culture, let there be a balance between the two levels of education just like the competence-based curriculum known as 2-6-3-3-3 envisages.
TVET principal secretary Julius Jwan says starting with a diploma did not mean forgoing university training. Dr Jwan estimates that tools and equipment TVET students in Kenya use are better than what is available at some universities and can pass test anywhere across the world.
Indeed, starting from lower qualifications is one of the ways to achieving one’s dream profession and career.
Some technicians earn more than professors.
US politician Marco Rubio once remarked that welders make more money than philosophers. Of course, this is not entirely logical since making money is not the Holy Grail of reading and training.
The days in which every student dreamed of white-collar jobs or belonging to a favoured elite class are long gone. Instead, every learner from kindergarten to university ought to dream of a decent job.
A rising number of people are “miserable” and “hopeless”
because “they don’t have an almighty good job,” says Jim Clifton, the chairman
of polling giant Gallup.
“A good job is a job with a paycheck from an
employer and steady work that averages 30+ hours per week.”
Securing such jobs require quality education measured by, among others, facilities, libraries, lecturers, exchange programmes, right population or well thought out expansion, and funding that leave no gaps.
Quality education and technical skills bridge the gap between the theories and knowledge, attitude, and skills from secondary schools.
However, some universities and the courses they offer are not useful to the society anymore as can be gleaned from the bleak numbers that KUCCPS released. Some courses got not a single applicant among the 125,000 that qualified for degree programmes.
Kenya can draw lessons from more industrialised nations like Germany, Finland, Norway, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea whose occupational and vocational training has become the alternative and suitable routes to professional life.
This decade, Kenya ought to customise training so that beginners and professionals can be more useful and readier than now to compete with the best globally.
Life-long learning is now more than ever necessary due to the fast changes across economies, across sectors, across professions.
Technical training could do more, should do more, and will do more for Kenya.
