Days of bed space as criterion for varsity admission long gone
The entrance to the University of Nairobi
In the 1990s, university education in Kenya took a beating because for a long time it was based on bed space. Thousands of Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education holders qualified for admission but for the longest time bed space allowed only under 10,000 students and not the entire lot with a minimum requirement of C+ and above.
This may have been understandable then. Kenya had just about three or four universities at the time. But things have since changed for the better, and now there are well over 40 universities.
Regrettably, Kenyans, by their scepticism of the 2022 KCSE results, may be unwittingly taking us back to the sorry days of bed space as a criterion for admission into universities. Whoever said Kenyans have peculiar habits cannot have been more right!
Why are Kenyans nostalgic about bed space? In these refreshing days of 100 per cent transition into secondary school, the government should set the education system on a growth trajectory so that at least half of KCSE candidates get the requisite C+ grade.
In Nigeria, and I know the Ministry of Education here is more familiar with this fact, against a population of 180 million, there are over 150 universities, and there are over 25 million graduates; 16 per cent of the population.
In Kenya, out of 47 million, with 40-plus universities, only two per cent are graduates. Do we want these numbers to dwindle even more? I don’t think so. General growth and improvement of the lives of the people has never been about educating just a select few, but about the transformation that happens in a great majority of the people.
Why are Kenyans incensed that the 2022 KCSE results show that tens of thousands have qualified to join universities in the country, which have grown tenfold anyway? Are we unhappy when deserving students qualify to continue with tertiary education? Our ideal in the education sector should be 100 per cent transition into institutions of higher learning in the shortest time possible.
Available statistics show that the number of degree holders was a poor 500,000 in 2013. However, appetite for education has since soared phenomenally over the last few years. The 2019 census report shows that degree holders in Kenya are still a paltry 1.3 million against a population of 47 million.
If we factor in 30 per cent that are alleged to be doubtful, it would mean that by 2019, the total number of degree holders had not passed the one million mark in 56-plus years of independence. Therefore, all well-meaning citizens of Kenya should urge the government to work to grow literacy in Kenya to degree level. It is against this background that it is surprising to see the same Kenyans talk ill about the 2022 KCSE results. “There are too many As and Bs,” they regret.
The determination of some Kenyans to stifle the increase of student numbers passing national examinations is ill-advised. We might have collectively misdiagnosed what is ailing higher education in Kenya, and a misdiagnosis cannot be the basis for treatment unless the objective is death. The problem of education in Kenya, in my assessment, is this obsession with ranking of schools and not in the fact that more and more are passing national examinations. As a society, with the dearth of jobs, and this may very well be the issue after all, we tend to mistakenly believe that the school system has the sole function of an assembly plant that is suppose to churn out labour. Wrong. Education also equips us with better problem-solving skills, among others. It is said that those who prosper are those who are able to solve the challenges and problems in the society.
Granted, the school system is supposed to provide skilled labour but the fact that jobs have become far and few between does not mean those who get university education are supposed to be fewer! Bed space was so backward, let us not resurrect it. If we had stayed with it, only about 30,000 students would have secured admission into universities in 2017 to 2019 when available information actually shows 70,073, 90,377, and 125,746 candidates scored the requisite C+ and above respectively.
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That is a whopping 85 per cent of otherwise qualified candidates would have been shut out of university education in the three years in question. If we add the numbers from 2020 to 2023, the picture would be too gloomy and sickening to contemplate. Bed space would have confined university education to just a token few every year!
All governments are obligated to ensure social amenities expand to match population growth and the needs of economies. It is not feasible that a growing economy will require low literacy at the highest levels. If Kenyans do not want students to pass examinations, how will growth in the economy be achieved?
