How to Make Kenyan Universities More Competitive

The Star.
 
By Collins Mabinda
For too long, multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and IMF pushed for increased investments in the primary school and secondary school education sector. The argument was that by investing in the basic education sector, African countries stood a better chance of growing their economies. However, recent evidence has in fact emerged that universities that are top quality offer the best chance for Kenya and Africa to advance forward. How then can Kenyan universities position themselves so that they are competitive, and contribute meaningfully to the growth of the economy?
First of all, Kenyan universities must be able to attract the brightest students and lecturers from within Kenya, Africa, and beyond. While universities no doubt have attracted the best students in KCSE, they could do a lot more in recruiting more students from around Africa and the world. This would internationalise our universities, and ensure that the best minds from across the globe are attracted to the universities. This in turn would enable cross fertilisation of ideas between students from various countries, which in itself would help improve the exposure for both students and lecturers alike. Exposure is especially important for many reasons. It allows students to be able to learn, and even improve on their own ideas. One of the reasons why the Asian Tigers were able to develop was because they sent their students to study in leading universities in the West, and the exposure gained was used to develop their home countries when they returned back. Programmes like Equity Bank's Wings to Fly are to be lauded, provided that they also provide a way that the students who head overseas are able to return back and make a contribution to Kenya.
However, for the universities to attract first rate talent from the region and elsewhere, they will have to do certain things right. First, improvement of the facilities within universities must be a matter of priority. The universities, both public and private, are getting good money from students, and it would be time that they invested that money in building state of the art laboratories, and buying equipment that can be used for research. In this way, more research will be conducted in our universities, which would lead to cutting edge solutions, which in turn would lead to creation of start-ups and companies because of the new ideas that will be spawned out of our universities. There is a direct correlation between the universities investment in conducting cutting edge research and a country's economic development.
As an immediate step, Kenyan universities could seek collaborations with reputable overseas universities, so that each can benefit from the other. By establishing credible links with overseas universities, this will allow for mutual engagement and such endeavors as student exchanges and lecturers exchange programmes will then begin to take place. Such exchanges will also enable each university to learn from best practices elsewhere in the world.
What's more, many of our university lecturers are not publishing as often as they should. Although there is a rule that lecturers and academics must publish frequently, these rules are never quite adhered to. By publishing in both local and internationally respected academic journals, Kenyan academics will increasingly be in a good stead to get funds to enable them carry out research. But the problem isn't just a lecturer's one. Lecturers are currently overburdened as the number of students that are admitted to our universities continues to increase. As a result, our universities have instead moved to concentrate more on teaching at the expense of research, which has served to dilute the quality of some academic programmes. While teaching is no doubt an invaluable part of the university experience, if it draws in too much of the lecturer's time, then it would significantly impact the lecturer's ability to carry out cutting edge research.
Still, universities must aim to collaborate with industry, so that even as they prepare students for the job market, the students are better aligned to the areas where there are jobs for them. Principally, by collaborating with industry, universities will be able to design curricular that match industry needs. Industry collaborations will also enable the universities to get funding and grants from the industry to enable them carry out cutting edge research, and offer scholarships to needy but deserving students. With these steps, Kenyan universities will not only increase their competitiveness, but they will also help pull Kenya's economy along even as they improve in their competitiveness.