Well, it’s another weekend and it’s been a while since i wrote something. Will try and keep this short. I was having a phone conversation with a friend who has very educated but zero skills employees. What is happening to our education system? I have worked with learning institutions most of my short life in this planet and especially this country that I love called Kenya. Most principals in high schools will complain of having teachers who can’t teach. Who do we blame for the lack of skills and challenges facing the work place?
We have more university campuses than we have training institutes and polytechnics. Our country has more white collar job lot jobless and no technical skilled jobless person. According to daily nation article by Ouma Wanzala dated June 8th 2017, this country has a challenge of engineers. Kenya has only 2,100 certified engineers serving 45 million people against an expected minimum of 6,000. Also our beloved CS once said, Kenya faces shortage of artisans and other skilled labour – CS Matiang’i. Yet we have kids struggling to get to our universities.
Let’s have a look at what we have. What kind of graduates do companies get? A person with a tweng, they are busy trying to sound intelligent but wait till you ask them to write something down. You will be astounded with the kind of grammar you will be handling on your desk, the spellings and sentence construction will shock you. These are people who are afraid to think for themselves and wait to be thought for, anyone who has led a group even on whatsapp will attest to this. This is now forcing companies to spend more on in house training. Someone told me they are getting half-baked employees with fancy degrees.
You get a good resume and think this one is the perfect one. Masters with honors on their resume, then you give them a task, that’s when you and the person who buys a dress online have the same problem. It was only good on paper; your new employee has zero skills, no creativity or even the drive. This is where now you have train them a fresh yet they spent years in school. Unlucky you if you get the untrainable ones. The ones who went through private schools where they were coached on how to pass exams and how to steal and buy exams in their university life, but they were never taught how to think or be productive. So you are left with some employees who are just a decoration in your company just like the fancy wall lights you have in your office.
This is all because our parents celebrated degrees more than skills; we have been brought up from childhood believing that all you need is to graduate. Anyone who lives on Thika rd can surely tell how Kenyans celebrate graduations. The traffic is always a menace, try ordering an Uber the surge is continuous. Anyway it’s not about me and ranting about transportation. But seriously about that traffic… will be back to complain. Then we have lost all the good colleges by converting them to universities. Who thought that was a good idea? He should be shot, well at least on the leg. Because we are mass producing slaying men and women who are experts of taking selfies and Instagram updates than anything else. Universities no longer care about quality education with proper skills as long as the students ‘graduate’ and the institution makes money. What a shame.
We have men who can’t do anything beyond changing tires yet they spent years in school, yes this again. I believe in good skills and if you ever want to test my skills feel welcome. We forget life is not aout papers but survival, and basic skills will make you survive. Schools nowadays teach students on how to pass exams instead coaching them how learn and pass them. Yes I have tried this and it works. In short, let’s go back to the basics and re-introduce competence and skills based education as opposed to exam/papers based “education”. That way, we won’t have to mourn that we have very few “As” and so many “Ds”.
As a parent teach your child the basic skills, as a teach coach your student on ways learn better and comprehend, remember and articulately express it on paper. As a country let’s remember where the rain started to beat us. This way we will build a society with competent people and a good nation will emerge.
