Kenya’s youth bulge, can be a curse or a blessing. According to
President Kenyatta “a large number of idle and frustrated youth pose a
significant risk to the survival of the Kenyan State”.
In Mr.Kenyatta’s view to turn the
youth bulge into Uhuru a blessing is pretty straight forward. He believes that if many
young people get money and opportunity to earn a living and “buy into the Kenya
dream” they could be a veritable driver of growth and prosperity.
Mr. Kenyatta’s fears are not unfounded. His remarks, made at the National Security Strategy seminar last week,
came just after the African Development Bank said Kenya’s growth has made a few
richer while majority struggle to survive. According to the bank Kenya risks
degenerating into a fragile state when only a few reap the benefits of prosperity.
We are witnessing prosperity of the few by the few for the few.
According to the African Development Bank, high levels of poverty, regional
disparities, limited access to basic services, inequality and unemployment
underline the prosperity of the very few and the exclusion of the many from
“buying into the Kenyan dream”. Like Mr. Kenyatta, the bank warns that if not
addressed, poverty, inequality and the high rate unemployment could pose a
threat to Kenya’s stability.
According to Mr. Kenyatta, idle and frustrated youth
can be “drawn to ideologies that undermine the legitimacy of the State and can
be used to destroy our democratic dispensation”. Just in case you forgot, the median age is about 19
and nearly nearly 80 per cent of Kenyans are classified as youth, aged below 35
years.
The
high walls, razor wire fences, the booming security industry underscore a
growing sense of fear and insecurity among Kenya’s upper middle and wealthy
classes. The rich want to scoot out of town. The proliferation of the exclusive
gated suburbs is nothing but a shameful reminder of the dogged determination of
the wealthy to secede from the messy insanitary state of our cities.
Think
about the tens of millions of Kenyans who work so hard and yet cannot feed or
clothe or provide shelter for their loved once. They are the majority. I am
reminded of the words spoken by JF Kennedy more than half a century ago; “If a free society cannot help the many who
are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich”.
I
have said many time in this column that we must summon the courage to act to
confront inequality, tackle poverty and extend opportunity to all citizens. And
it must start with the 890,000 kids who will sit KCPE this week. Consider that
over 7million children are enrolled in primary school compared to just over 2
million enrolled in secondary school. Such a high drop out or attrition rate is
both immoral and unconscionable.
We
have too few secondary schools. The ratio of secondary schools to primary
schools must be one to one. Moreover, secondary schools are simply unaffordable
for a majority of Kenyans. For instance national public schools charge up to
$1,200 a year, a figure, which until the economy was rebased, was higher than
our per capita GDP. In a competitive, globalized knowledge economy, secondary
education must not a privilege of the few but a birth right of every Kenyan
child.
The
task force on secondary school fees has made recommendations to make secondary
education more accessible. These include elimination of unnecessary levies and
increasing annual government subsidy from $120 to $146. Wealthy Kenyans spend
between $3,500 and $12,000 per year on tuition for their children.
To
paraphrase Kennedy’s words; can we forge against these enemies a national
alliance – bringing together all the ethnic ragtag coalitions – to deliver the
solemn pledge of our forbears to expand opportunity for a majority of youth and
build a more inclusive society. Divided, there is little we can do against the
unholy trinity of poverty, unemployment and radicalized youth.
And
in the immortal words of JF Kennedy, the trumpet summons us again to bear the
bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out—a struggle
against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.
If
the bulwark inter-ethnic understanding and cooperation may push back the jungle
of petty strife, let all of Kenya’s people join in forging a new order, not
more fractious and fleeting balance of ethnic power. What is sorely needed is a
new dispensation in our politics, where the strong are just and honorable and
the week live in dignity and security.
The youth
bulge would be boon because if 75 percent of every cohort graduated from
tertiary education with skills they would add more than $10 billion annually to
the economy.
I
encourage the government to consider carefully, the recommendations of the task
force on secondary school fees. Affordable, high quality secondary education capped
with tertiary level skills is the best way to forestall the risk posed to the
Kenyan state by idle and frustrated youth.
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