Hundreds of thousdands of
young men and women graduate from our universities every year with a bachelor’s
degree. To have made it this far in the education system, these young men are
women are clearly the fittest of their peers. And they are the pride of their
families, who also have great expectations of them.
However, these young men
and women are often not so lucky. A vast majority of them end up, just like
their friends who did not graduate from college, trying without much luck to
find their place in the economy. Finding a job is even harder because according
to a study conducted by the Inter-University
Council of East Africa (IUCEA) in collaboration with East Africa Business Council
(EABC) about 56 percent of students graduating from East African universities
lack basic and technical skills needed in the job market.
It
would seem that this is not the right time to graduate from university. Many in
our society now wonder if a university degree is even worth the paper it is
printed on. Many recent graduate drift off and are underemployed, performing low-level
tasks, which do not require a university degree. So is a bachelor’s degree
worthless? Absolutely not!
I suggest that given the levels
of unemployment among recent graduates, there is a wide and unconscionable gap
between the skills the work place demands and the calibre of graduates we are
churning out. Or are we expecting too much out of a bachelor’s degree? It seems
to me that we demand both skills training and an academic specialization to be accomplished
in three or four yearundergrauate program.
But university eduacation
does not come cheap. A vast majority of parents across the EAC region spend a
considerable proportion of their income and assets to send a daughter or a son
to univeristy. Moreover, with meagre allowances, which is what students have, life
is pretty tough on campus for undergraduates.
Universities must therefore
be held accountable for quality or value for money, given the huge amount of
tax payer dollars and family resources that go into educating our children. Why
should unieverities continue to exist even when more than half of the the
graduates they produce lack basic and technical skills
needed in the job market?
Consider
this, if a commercial airline company said to you that that their flight safety
record was 40 percent or that their fatal crash record was 60 percent would you
or your family fly with the airline? Or would the aviation authorities allow
them to keep their license? It pretty simple. No one would need to fly with
this airline because they would be out of business and have a battery of lawsuits
against them and victims to compensate.
I have said here before
that 19th century model model of higher education we are promoting
today is outdated and out of sync with 21st century needs of both
the student and the economy. Our university education model sets up a majority
of our students to fail. How we teach, along
neat disciplinary fault lines, with an inordinate empahsis facts and
content does not promote meaningful learning.
Our undergraduates have to
read huge amounts of material memorise and regurgutate mountains of facts to
pass exams. We demand nothing of their critical thinking or analytical or
research or synthesis skills. And it gets worse in this day and age when there is
too much information. Its no wonder that students often copy, plagiarise, huge
amounts of undigested mnaterial from internet sources and paste on to their
essays.
What is the future of university
education in East Africa? I think it is pretty dreadful. The challenge of poor
funding is understandable but not sufficient as an excuse for such deplorable
quality. Our universities must change to meet the needs of our society.
Here are some questions to
consider. Do we still need to invest scarce resources on content heavy
curricular, which is delivered by a professor? What do students want to learn
and how do they want to learn? What relationship can we build with potential
employers to graduate work ready students? How can technology improve the
qulity of learning while keeping the cost of highe reudcation low?
I don't have answers. But
we change we must. Business as usual is not an option and universities must not
be allowed to be self serving.
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