Thursday 11 June 2015

HIGHER EDUCATION IN KENYA: IT’S TIME TO SCALE BACK TO BARE MINIMUM

In Overall, higher education in Kenya has really grown in terms of capacity and training. However, more effort should be channeled towards research so that we can find solutions to never ending problems that come up every single day.  

Koitalel Arap Samoei University and Nyamira State University to be established in Nandi & Nyamira Counties respectively will be the next entrants in higher education. While that is commendable, I want to believe that we have somewhat successfully managed to elevate higher education in Kenya and it’s time to focus on creating jobs for the thousands of graduates that we train in these numerous university lest we make the already deteriorating situation much worse.

Statistics show that Kenya produces approximately 50,000 graduates annually and this number is expected to rise steadily in the coming years.  While the government records show that 116,000 formal jobs were created last year (2014), we still have thousands without jobs. Referring to the statistics, it means that we had 56,000 surplus jobs.  Undoubtedly, there is inconsistency with the data and most probably it’s not accurate as it does not represent the reality on the ground. The number of university graduates is not in sync with the jobs created.

With the significant growth, we should then scale back the budget to bare minimum for higher education and divert the funds to basic education (primary & secondary) which is in dire need of searious upgrading.


#My2Cents #Budget2015