The Kenya scholars can embrace professionalism to spearhead economic recovery

Kenya PhD holders; the irony of eating through the stomach instead of earning by the brain

According to a report by the Commission for University Education 2016/2017, Kenya is radiating academic glory of hosting a pool of 10,000 PhD holders. Out of this, 6122 of them ply their trade (teach and research) in the universities; the number could be greater considering the four years since the report’s release.

The report also revealed that currently, the country trains on average 400 PhD students annually against the commission’s projection of 900 students per year. Since independence if the statistical outliers are considered, so that the average is pegged at 100 PhD students per annum to date; it would mean that Kenya has had the opportunity to train 1 million PhD students, inclusive of deceased ones. Currently, rough estimate of PhD education fee in Kenya is averagely Sh200000 per year. This gives a total average cost of Sh2 million per student. It therefore means that for the entire 1 million students who have been trained for PhD programme alone the government has spent on average Sh2 trillion or $200 billion within 58 years of independence.

To bring this message home, an interesting comparison would suffice. It has been 53 years since the American landed in space (moon) in 1969. For this to be achieved, it took the dedication of 400,000 professionals who constantly worked on the scene or behind it. The cost of this exercise was $28 billion or $288.1 considering the inflation-adjusted dollars as per the NASA information repository. In all fairness, the NASA’s achievement should not be our yardstick basing on our rudimentary. However, basing on the near similarity in timeframe and monetary terms, it has piqued my interest even if it might stoke the ire of these elites. My vulnerability in this is palpable due to my scholarly infancy fastened in diapers hence can’t purport to have the audacity to hold a candle to the very source of light – doctors.

By all kindness, to expect our scholars to tread the path of NASA or to outsmart them by exploring the planet Venus would be asking too much of our gurus; but finding a lasting solution to food insecurity is understandable. This we can demand of them basing on the fact that we have a pool of more than 10000 professionals (their specialty notwithstanding) out of the 1 million whose training has consumed a commensurate amount to a task that was undertaken by only 400,000 professionals. It has to start from food because food is the foundation of life hence the mantra – make food your medicine and medicine your food. A healthy energetic nation thinks straight thus innovative. A straight thinker who is energised is the currency to a robust economy.

Reflection to this could be drawn from what Israelites did to their – used to be desert rocky – terrain. If they (Israelites) can now export thousands of tonnes of different crop products to several countries, then our scholars have no excuse but to find a means to address food security because there is ready fertile land and favourable climate (it must not be reserved for agriculturalists or economists). This clarion call is therefore best suited for the 6122 scholars, a fraction that is tasked with ensuring the universities uphold the tenets of research and teaching.

Prof Ratemo Michieka avers that “Every single country takes pride in its universities, whether it is government-supported or not. This is their pride in problem solving and national development. It is more prestigious than sports in its output”.  While Prof Michieka sees the institutions as prestigious, the country should regale on their impact on problem solving courtesy of the scholars not the architectural edifice. Kenya is yet to achieve tangible contributions of its acclaimed scholars anyway!!

While it is an automatic expectation that these institutions be self-sustaining in terms of financial obligations in the reasoning that they are the citadels of innovations, nearly all universities are lurching under the weight of debts to the verge of being insolvent against the mantra: knowledge is power (which is resident in scholars) a privilege that they seem to abuse! The institutions should remain paragons of innovation led by the able scholars realising that innovation begets income generation. Contrarily, it is appalling that state owned universities are the ones mostly caught up in this entanglement of debt. They owe the government astronomical funds of non-guaranteed loans. According to data available with the National Treasury, the listing reads – University of Nairobi (Sh783 million), Kenyatta University (1.26 billion), and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Sh2.74 billion) just to mention the major debt ridden ones.

It becomes uglier when the university engages in shoddy deals. The irony of a university with reasoning top notch scholars spending Sh58 million against compensation claim whose value is Sh38 million for unjust dismissal by two employees could be a gaping misnomer. The unnecessary defense against the claim by employees whose rights were trampled on as ascertained by the courts could only be likened to a nursery school kid who defecates in a kitchen garden oblivious of importance of the garden to his health. One wonders if such litigation of 2020 received the nod of the University of Eldoret’s VC. Or even if the VC was indisposed then university’s senate (normally elemented by scholars) wasn’t in a trance either. Was it a conspiracy for oligarchs’ to have a field day? This is just an example of many in our universities.

Such are the impediments to any meaningful research findings from Kenyan universities that could improve life/ economy. While major findings are churned out from world universities recent one from University of Maryland School of Medicine that reported the first successful porcine heart transplant; our very own Catholic University of Eastern Africa would only want to take pride on a research publication on how facemasks enhance beauty of the wearers. What insolent? How does such publication improve on our economic development?

My submission therefore is that the Kenyan scholars should have unfettered opinion/ influence on major economic undertakings by the government.

This could only be achieved if the scholars spoke from a unified organised body such as a union of Kenyan PhD holders. It could officially be instituted by an Act of government through parliament such that all doctors became members by virtue of graduating with a PhD degree. This would as well enable the body to vet some of the dissertation of the new entrants so that they be implemented on large scale for the higher good of the country instead of lying in the library shelves for the purpose of academic references.

This could enable scholars to have veto powers to censure any government/ private projects that may not be economically sustaining. Perhaps, had this been the case, standard gauge railways wouldn’t have cost a lot; but then our engineers and economists (scholars) might have gone in bed with tenderpreneurs. Had this been the case Galana Kulalu could have redefined the food security issue in Kenya; but then our horticulturalists (scholars) might have gone into feasting with the scavengers. Had this been the case, the geologists could have structured the mining industry and the Abimbo-like tragedies would have been long mitigated; but then the geologists might have decided to sell souls of poor miners in exchange with fortunes!

Kenya would actually enjoy quality services from scholars had there been a body that checks for the scholars excesses. This club of scholars would be able to deal with members who have the proclivity of cutting deals so that the scholars remain venerated. But for now, Kenya PhD holders can only be described as a brood of “knowledge repository” making decision through the stomach instead of their resourceful brains!!