Between Chaff and Substance: Useless Education and Useful Learning

By Zachary Kamau (The Author is a Public Speaker and Corporate MC)

About two weekends ago, TVETA, the government agency that regulates technical and vocational institutions in Kenya once again partnered with The Permanent Working Group (PWG) for TVET, an industry lobby for the actions in the subsector, to showcase their market offerings at the KICC.

I was an invited delegate during the inaugural event two years ago and was sufficiently awed by the level of organization. I was also privileged to attend one of the PWG meetings where the actors meet regularly to champion the cause for TIVET.

The level of coherence and engagement was quite impressive with industry players being on board to champion curriculum design.

Incidentally, His Excellency the Deputy President has in the last few years engaged in aggressive lobbying for TVET institutions to get more generous funding from the exchequer.

Their efforts, the PWG, and D.P that is have borne fruit. Students joining these institutions are now eligible for government-subsidized education loans. According to the relevant institutions, graduates from TVET institutions transition into employment faster than university graduates, making them a safer bet as borrowers.

Last week, officials of the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB), the agency that disburses and recovers government sub sized student loans while launching their strategic plan literally read the riot act to defaulting borrowers mostly university graduates. They threatened to enlist the services of the National Police Service to track them down.

Expectedly, there was deafening uproar both from the alleged defaulters and politicians. In fact, unemployed graduates offered to return their degree certificates in exchange for student loan write-offs. They claimed that the said loans were a set up by the government to trap them in debt as they cannot secure formal employment despite their impressive credentials.

In contrast, a study conducted by South African Statistician General in 2017 revealed that the transition to employment in South Africa was the reverse to that of Kenya; where university graduates transitioned into employment more easily than their TVET counterparts.

In the last thirty years, our economy has experienced some strange skilled labor adjustments. During this period, both the government and the private sector invested heavily in university education at the expense of TVET. A university degree became one of the most sorts after qualifications evidenced by the high enrollment when public education was privatized at public universities through the so-called parallel programs.

While everyone who should have known better reimagined the value of a degree, the economy had been going through a sluggish season especially during the ’90s. This resulted in stagnant growth for most white-collar employers. When the economy was revived in the early 2000s the tailback of unemployed graduates was somewhat mopped up creating an illusion of prospects of white collar jobs.

The reality, however, was different, when the economy regained its vibrancy many people opted to set up small business ventures instead of pursuing mainstream employment. Microlenders became overnight successes as the financial intermediaries of choice. At the same time, the East especially China became the most preferred business destination. Here is the catch though, these startups were not growing fast enough to create employment for university graduates, at their level of operations, TVET graduates or less would do. Thousands of micro business units emerged in what the National Bureau of Statistics describes as the informal sector largely because the government hasn’t yet figured out what to call it or even how to regulate it.

In the previous week, the Commission of University Education (CUE) had declared 133 university courses “useless” only to backtrack after the resultant furor. Unlike the TVET institutions, our public universities seem to have been caught in an extended slumber of operating in oblivion. At the time of writing this, many of them are in financial distress as a result of bulging student populations against declining government funding. The private ones are beginning to feel the pinch as well with student populations declining as many opt for government institutions.

About two years ago I was involved in the launch of non-electric infant incubator that costs a fraction of the conventional one. The product had been developed at the University of Michigan Medical Faculty through collaboration among pediatric medical practitioners, materials engineers, and fashion designers. There was nothing informal about the entire research, development and design process. On the other hand, a Kenyan school drop-out has better chances of inventing a profitable enterprise than an engineering graduate.

Unfortunately, that is not even the worst part, most university students graduate with business-related courses that carry the tag “marketable”. With some luck, they end up as clerical officers in the financial and telco services sectors that finance the micro-enterprises. This model does not train job creators, it churns out job consumers. The obligation of job creation has become the preserve of school dropouts, TVET graduates and some deluded governors. No wonder they are informal, why would they not be. Further, when university graduates eventually recover from the disillusionment, they do learn how to operate in the informal sector as well; a world devoid order and regulation. Mugo wa Wairimu a university graduate, who practices back street medicine whilst sharing a name with a renown Kikuyu medicine man would be an appropriate illustration.

Our economy is a flipped funnel, with the bottom of the pyramid calling the shots. The best brains are wasting away behind lofty titles and flowery concept papers. University education should not be an end unto itself, it ought to be part of the job creation narrative. The government heavily invests in it, it’s about time it considered cashing in. In a country where a matatu tout has more clout than a university professor, the only industry worth investing in will be the public transport one.

I recall reading about the Chinese political revolution in a book titled “Tell the World” and what role the intellectuals played. Our country is in dire need of a social-economic revolution and our intellectuals have a crucial role to play. Perhaps they should borrow a leaf from their technical counterparts and start engaging industry players as pertinent stakeholders in the learning value chain. Universities have great facilities for research and development, why not partner with industry players to offer R & D services. Even better, they could develop a curriculum that would enable all these informal microenterprises to achieve white collar status to create opportunities for their graduates.