I am not that invested in young people getting degrees. GoK has turned degrees into a soul crunching accounting balance sheet through its neoliberal surveillance baptised "quality assurance." Kenyans cynically go through to get a paper, rather than to gain knowledge.
But if degrees may be useless, universities are not. Universities are the expression of the human instinct for conversation with people from all over the world. Africa has had them for millenia There was Sankore in Timbuktu, and al-Qarawiyyin started by a woman, Fatima al-Fihri.
Griots (the artists-historians of West African oral tradition) would consult such scholars and libraries in the composing of epics about their people over thousands of years. So there was a fluid relationship between oral and written word, and between society and scholars.
So these contraptions where people get certified with papers that make them have the right to status but not share knowlege, where civil servants use regulation from foreign countries, are not authentic universities. They're idols representing the real thing.
The corruption of the university started in 19th century England where the lazy bums called aristocrats packaged knowledge to entice the rising middle class not to demand an overthrow of the feudal system that made people rich through inheritance, not work
The British brought their model of university here, tied by an umbilical cord to University of London, to create a middle class that would be loyal to the British against revolt by ordinary Kenyans against colonial rule.
That's why the first Kenyan graduates were the president's relatives from the families of chiefs.
Colonial Kenya sent the least funds and least graduates to Makerere, which was supposed to be an effort of all three colonies.
Colonial Kenya sent the least funds and least graduates to Makerere, which was supposed to be an effort of all three colonies.
The colonial government and settlers didn't want Kenyans in university, and only accepted when they realized that Americans were offering unviersity education to African students, which would make Africans more loyal to US than UK.
It's always been about imperial competition.
It's always been about imperial competition.
That brings me to the offensive policy of the government to throw students who were expecting to go to university into TVET, which the government tried to justify yesterday on @citizentvkenya #Mondayreport
Kenyans are accepting this abuse by repeating these goverment cliches that are so stupid:
1. people shouldn't get degrees because they won't get employment
2. People should not expect employment but be entrepreneurs
3. Degrees don't teach skills that lead to entrepreneurship
1. people shouldn't get degrees because they won't get employment
2. People should not expect employment but be entrepreneurs
3. Degrees don't teach skills that lead to entrepreneurship
If you notice, I have not mentioned employment AT ALL in the purpose of a university. The primary purpose of universities in Kenya may have looked like employment to you natives, but to the government, it was about the creation of a middle class loyal to the government.
Uthamakistanis - the most coopted tribe of all - will tell you (if they're honest) that to our grandparents, employment was about a job in the government or in a British multi-national company.
They needed graduates who were English in thinking and loyalty.
They needed graduates who were English in thinking and loyalty.
The story of universities offering entrepreneurship skills is a LIE. Don't believe it. It cannot happen. Entrepreneurship is human creativity in a world that allows it. You don't need to go to school to be an entrepreneur.
So why do unis, GoK, parasite sector repeat this lie?
So why do unis, GoK, parasite sector repeat this lie?
The entrepreneurship story is PR for two purposes:
1. to keep cheating #upperdeckpeopleKE that they can schooling is a source of social advancement. Because if mindukras realize that social advancement is rigged by the queen mother and her relatives, we will have a revolution.
1. to keep cheating #upperdeckpeopleKE that they can schooling is a source of social advancement. Because if mindukras realize that social advancement is rigged by the queen mother and her relatives, we will have a revolution.
2. To promote the neoliberal, anti-democratic ideology that the government of Kenya doesn't owe us social services and a good economy. They keep telling us to be entrepreneurs so that we blame ourselves for our poverty and poor governance.
So what has happened with this TVET policy, dear Kenyans, is abuse. Kids went to school being cheated that Kenya is a free market, that everybody who works hard can make it in life. And that university was proof of that economic justice.
It does not exist.
It does not exist.
By changing the policy so drastically without warning kids last year not to bother working hard, since their results don't matter anyway, GoK is basically changing the game after 16 years of investment, and with no apologies, except - go do something else.
And that, dear Kenyans, is called autocracy. Autocracy is the abuse of power to change rules of the game after people have invested years and resources, with no apologies, simply because the Queen Mother and her family are feeling insecure.
So those of you rejoicing at the crushing of the hopes of our youth, at this dishonesty where GoK tells people to invest years in something, and when they do, GoK changes, the rules, just know this: You are fools. Utter fools.
You are so narrow minded and clueless, you think that this is about sijui economy on rules set by white men to rule the world. Let me tell you what this TVET looks like:
A lie to young people to suit the rich, and which young people will have the right to burn down.
A lie to young people to suit the rich, and which young people will have the right to burn down.
And this is to the young people of Kenya:
1. If you were made a promise that if you work hard you would go to university, the government needs to deliver. Changing the rules after you've done the work is abuse.
1. If you were made a promise that if you work hard you would go to university, the government needs to deliver. Changing the rules after you've done the work is abuse.
2. That said, universities are not all that. Seek knowledge from outside the schooling system, not ony through it. You are lucky you have internet. Let's start our own education institutions: libraries, cultural centers, museums where we can learn and share real knowledge.
I am sorry that my generation is doing this to you. In our defense, we don't know better. Were brainwashed for 24 years by president II, and crushed by the structural adjustment programs that destroyed Kenya, but were educated to believe we are entitled to a middle class life.
So my generation is trying to fix a system that is too rotten to be fixed, and it is crumbling around the world. But we can't think, and we don't know how deal with reality. Our souls were crushed.
Forgive us.
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Forgive us.
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