When the results of Kenya’s two well known national examinations results are released yearly, the top-performing candidates keep quoting a few professions as their dream careers. Neurosurgeon tops this thin list. It should worry Kenya’s ministries of Education and Planning.
Why? Education Ministry has the task of giving planners at the Treasury people/talent that can create wealth. More importantly, the students themselves ought to leave school knowing how to navigate the treacherous journey of earning income and building the nation.
This year, when the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) was released, there was a bit of a stir and mirthful resentment among Kenyan journalists who were not happy with Faith Mumo, the best candidate with 433 marks of a possible 500, who said she is eyeing neurosurgeon having dropped journalism.
She explained that her teacher told her she could become something “better” than being a journalist, she told K24 TV station.
Donald B Kipkorir, a Kenyan lawyer, weighed in and said career guidance was failing. According to him, when KCPE results are released, “nearly all the top students want to be neurosurgeons & [a] few want law”. Hardly any want engineering, teaching, agronomy or journalism, Mr Kipkorir said, observing that “Career mentoring in primary schools is broken.”
Perhaps, the Ministry of Education, led by Prof George Magoha, ought to use such observations to find ways of refining career guidance in schools while aiming at a more fulfilling life once people enter certain professions. Focusing on a few courses is also telling because young people see lawyers having banters on national TV, representing political heavyweights who want to become the President of the nation. Lawyers also get more than five hours of TV time in job interviews to become the president of the Supreme Court of Kenya.
American Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who also wanted to become President of the US, gave this surgery role a larger than life profile in his books like ‘Gifted Hands’ and ‘Think Big’. Journalists, especially TV reporters and news readers, have been said to feel more more important than bank presidents. So, to a young pupil that is the hallmark of success.
However, the Ministry of Education and anybody else could use the rich feedback when the KCPE and KCSE results are released to revamp career advice and ask whether the role is the preserve of teachers and parents or guardians.
Away from the exams glory, being an outlier is what has given the world a turn or voice that creates impact. So, it is a constriction of sorts to think that doing something critical only comes after sitting a national exam and passing with flying colours. Becoming something useful can happen during schooling or in retirement, based on one’s conviction and continuous learning.
Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan made her point as an education rights advocate in early years of school. Greta Thunberg of Sweden has equally arrived on the international scene, campaigning for environmental protection as a student. People doing great things after retirement are uncountable, gaining from their rich experiences interacting and travelling across the globe.
A review of career counselling is more urgent today since the neurosurgeon-thinking creates in people the tired entitlement that some professions are more marketable than the rest. Some think, medicine is the best paying profession. the young people should be helped to know that becoming a neurosurgeon is perhaps only possible after years of medicine practice.
It is equally misleading to think of a fulfilling life as one that pays top dollar; that has a big name; that requires a higher entry mark.
Oprah Winfrey, who recently gave the world a media exclusive when she interviewed Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, urges people to listen to the voice that is calling and use it to change the world. We mention this interview because it is a mark of excellence in one’s job that gave Oprah more than good money in television rights, one station paying up to $9 million in licence fees.
Changing the world positively should be the highest wages and calling. This is the reason, the young people ought to be allowed to explore the world and arrive at a suitable career based on belief and interest.
It is Oprah who says, “You don’t become what you want, you become what you believe.” Since arriving at what “you believe” requires time and continual guidance, Kenya ought to think whether the careers journey is the teacher’s.
Are the teachers well equipped with the right information, exposure, frame of mind, and motivation to give the young learners what it takes to dream about a fulfilling career?
Perhaps, asking the top achievers to name their careers is putting them on the wrong path to nation-building, which is independent of the name or fame of a profession.
Next time, the community should ask the young people what they are bringing into the murky world of careers that will deliver more than the millions of shillings in salaries and consultation.
Is it honesty? Is it ethical behaviour? Is it integrity? It could be restlessness that delivers innovation changing the course of the world. Or curiosity that universities should impart but keep failing in while also regurgitating the tired procedures at diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate studies.
It is such traits that teachers ought to focus on while preparing the future neurosurgeons, teachers, farmers, journalists, plumbers, quantity surveyors, graphic and fashion designers…
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