Opinion - University Degrees Alone Can’t Solve Problems Of Poor African Countries By Henry Zakumumpa

I recently returned from a regional universities’ conference at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya.

Besides noticing the superb multiple lane, Chinese-built Thika Highway that would find a home in any Western capital, and which Kampala Capital City Authority Executive Director Jennifer Musisi should interest herself in, I observed an untold story.

Kenya is undergoing a quiet revolution in its university education, which has far-reaching consequences extending to Uganda. Until recently, Kenya had seven public universities that included Nairobi, Moi, Egerton, Kenyatta, Maseno and Masinde Muliro. Many Kenyans unable to afford private student tuition fees in Kenya flocked to Uganda.

Since 2007, Kenya has, through legal notices, embarked on an ambitious drive of establishing a university college in each county with 25 new university colleges already established across the country, a move partly driven by electoral politics.

With new public universities expected in Uganda in West Nile and Teso regions and Kabale University set to benefit from public funding, Uganda is following this Kenyan trend.

The principle difference is that the newly established universities in Kenya are constituent colleges of the already existing public universities whereas in Uganda, we are setting up entirely new public universities.

The dangers of hastily setting up public universities are obvious. African governments have scarcely been able to support the existing public universities, with persistent declines in funding and chronic strikes. Fathering more babies (universities) when you have sons you are scarcely able to feed and clothe is self-defeating. Most certainly, these new universities will be left to their own devices.

We have a small pool of qualified university lecturers that we are spreading too thin with declining research output owing to punishing teaching loads and overflowing classes.

Many former lecturers at Kenya’s public universities have found themselves Vice Chancellors and principals at the newly established university colleges in their home districts- a further example of the unfortunate ‘ethnicisation’ of public universities.

Infrastructure

In Uganda’s case, setting up completely new public universities without established infrastructure (the proposed West Nile university initially didn’t even have electricity supply), human resources, university administrative structures, curriculum development resources, etc make the Kenyan model seem preferable.

The major Kenyan public universities have been mandated to nurture the constituent university colleges in Kenya whereas in Uganda, the new public universities are on their own except for two or four administrators seconded from the existing public universities.

Undeniably, there is an unquenched demand for university education in both countries if you imagine the number of Ugandans who earn two principles pass and actually qualify for university education but never make it to university.

But are thousands of more university degrees what poor African countries actually need?

The multiplication of public universities in Kenya should be of interest to Ugandan universities, especially private ones which have depended on the Kenyan market for many years now. From where I sit, I already see a decline in the number of Kenyan students enrolling in Ugandan universities.

In our national development plans and East African Community strategy, it is assumed, rather than known, that Uganda has a comparative advantage over other EAC partner states with regard to the education sector. My visit to Kenyatta University has left me unsure.

Mushrooming public universities extend beyond Kenya and Uganda but in other African countries, political considerations are less of a motivation.

From the sole University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia has set up an astonishing new 30 universities in less than five years for its 80 million population. Malawi is setting up three more public universities in addition to the two existing ones.

Clearly, sub-Saharan African countries face a common challenge of rising young populations with no viable economies or national plans to meaningfully engage them. Setting up multiple public universities is the wrong answer to the right question.

Mr Zakumumpa works with Makerere University. zakumumpa@yahoo.com