State should take lead in reforming our universities

XN Iraki  President Uhuru Kenyatta with his Deputy William Ruto (second right) during the University of Nairobi graduation in December last year. [Boniface Okendo, Standard] The storm over the 118 PhD degrees that were granted at one public university masks bigger issues in Kenya’s higher education.

Let us go beyond the emotions and raw competition among universities into real issues. One, we have
moved from scarcity to plenty and we seem unable to handle this new deluge of higher degrees. From the 570 university students at independence to over 500,000 today, acquiring a degree is no longer a rarity. Once the full cycle of those going through 100 per cent transition to secondary school is complete, degrees will become more common and the laws of supply and demand will come into play. Curiously, graduation celebrations, which had subsided, are back with a bang. We need to be blunt on “oversupply” of degrees. By global, stands Kenya is still “underdegreed”. The fact that the key policymakers went to university when they were so few could be raising or informing the current debate. A more poignant observation is that although more Kenyans are graduates, they mainly specialise in social sciences. The eyebrows raised over the 118 PhD degrees had to do with skewness towards social sciences - read business. Would there have been the same eyebrows if 89 of 118 were in natural sciences, technology or mathematics (STEM)? The second issue is that with the dwindling numbers of the undergraduate population at public universities, courtesy of more universities and distribution of students between private and public higher institutions of learning, postgraduate qualifications remain the best option to build numbers. The demand for graduate studies is further driven by the rising number of bachelors degree holders who want to stand out. After masters degrees, Kenyans want to stand out from the master’s crowd, hence the popularity of PhDs. Soon, there will be demand for Doctor of Letters (D Litt) of a higher doctorate. The third issue in higher education is that it has expanded too fast. Even the newest universities have PhD programmes. Unpopular programmes Any market that expands that fast leads to a shakeout, with some players closing shop, merging, or bought out. Remember the dotcoms when the internet started? The big question is who should do the shake-out, the market or the sponsor, who happens to be the State? In a curious twist of events, the State is telling the universities to shake themselves out, through reforms, from right-sizing, a diplomatic term for retrenchment and doing away with unpopular programmes. The universities in the name of the market started those programmes, it’s now the moment of truth. The Government started the public universities, it should lead in their shake-out. In trying to do so, it will get into opposition from unfamiliar places - governors and communities that see universities as their own. The big jobs that universities offer in their locality like vice-chancellors (VCs), deputy vice-chancellors (DVCs) “benefit” local communities, not necessarily economically but psychologically. The publication of supplements on university graduation ceremonies has given insights into the big jobs. The other jobs below these positions, particularly non-teaching staff are welcome in the age of unemployment. Never mind that more jobs would be created if we focused on the skills and employability of the graduates. Graduates create jobs depending on how teachers, nature and inspire them.    The fourth issue is the silent shift to private schooling in higher education. By sponsoring students to study in private universities, the Government is simply subsidising non-State varsities. Our worry is that they could launch unmarketable degree programmes to attract government sponsored students and their money. We have suggested repeatedly that government-sponsored students should only go to private universities if that was their first choice. Bold and confident private universities preferred to select their own students and avoid government students. In the fullness of time, this was an ingenious move. It safeguarded their independence. Shall we have some private universities cash in on government students? Can private secondary and primary schools also get government-sponsored students? Foreign degrees The fifth issue is the rise in popularity of foreign degrees now that local ones have been declared suspect. Shall we have more Kenyans trooping to foreign countries (majuu) that was popular just after uhuru? Shall foreign universities set base here to cash in on this market? Will our graduates find it hard to get big jobs abroad on account of the credibility of their degrees? Sixth is the future of higher education. How will it look like after shakeout? How much freedom universities keep? With the hiring of VCs and their deputies by the Public Service Commission, will politics take precedence over meritocracy? Will the student become the reason deter of university existent? Lastly, few can doubt our higher education needs reforms and a shakeout, but we are not sure what reforms are needed and who will spearhead them. Yet Kenya will not achieve Vision 2030 or its latest derivative Big Four without critical thinking espoused by higher education. We can’t outsource thinking. Ask China, Japan or Asian tigers. A country that outsources its thinking is eventually controlled by those it outsources thinking too. We are already seeing evidence of that in Kenya.  What issue have we left out?  -The writer teaches at the University of Nairobi