By XN IRAKI

By the end of this year, Thika Superhighway will be complete, a monument to the bold and broad new future envisioned in Vision 2030.

Other physical infrastructure projects are ongoing, including expansion of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and introduction of new technologies like self-checking kiosks. 

If there is a single term that can define President Kibaki’s political era, it is physical infrastructure.  However, some observers opine that not enough has gone to intellectual infrastructure, which has replaced the traditional factors of production such as land as the key catalyst of economic growth.

Looking farther, it is clear that the growth of economic powers from China to India and other East Asian nations is buttressed on intellectual infrastructure. For all the time UK was the leading world power, she led in education, particularly higher education. US is not just a super power because of owning nuclear weapons, but she has some of the world’s top universities.

The rise of China as an economic power has gone hand in hand with increased enrollment in higher education. By 2020, China and India will contribute 40 per cent of the world’s graduates with the USA falling to the third place. Brazil, another rising power, will be doing better than Germany, according to OECD estimates. South Korea, which has defied all odds to become an economic and technological power, has 60 per cent of her 24-35 years population accessing higher education while her 15 year olds are world leaders in maths and science.

California in USA

The number of graduates is not enough, what matters is what they study. The rise of current world economic powers is driven not by just more educated workforce, but in critical areas such as science and technology. The case of China is telling; eight out of nine members of the politburo (highest decision making body in the land) are science graduates. 

Some of us can recall being taught maths and sciences by Indians in the 1970s and 1980s. It is no wonder that India is currently the world’s pharmacy and computer science giant. Unknown to the public, the intellectual infrastructure that has spawned modern India was laid long time with an Indian, C V Raman winning a Nobel Prize in physics in 1930. 

The government of India set the intellectual infrastructure by starting the world-class institutes, Indian Institutes of Technology spread all over the country. The predominance of California in the USA economy is more about a solid intellectual infrastructure with the flagship university of California system. This system is the engine of the Silicon Valley, cross fertilised by foreign students who bring new perspectives.

The Massachusetts leadership in the US economy is driven by a solid intellectual infrastructure centred around Boston with flagship universities like Harvard and MIT. Some observers think that the rise of China, India and other economies buoyed by citizens with higher education will soon start challenging the western dominance. 

Currently western thought still dominate the world intellectual infrastructure. We talk of Navier–Stockes equation in fluid dynamics (has it been solved analytically?) and Keynesian economics. Never post Kamau or Odongo equation. Even Chinese cannot avoid western systems as she modernises.

A well educated workforce is open to new ideas, creates new ideas, is willing to experiment and take risks. If science and technology oriented, they are more likely to create more firms and jobs. Which leading global firm is not based on science and technology?

A good intellectual infrastructure is anchored on a solid cultural base; the other reason Koreans, Chinese and Japanese have easily conquered the world economically. A Kenyan culture is still evolving.

So how can we build an intellectual infrastructure beyond the super highways? Should it be private or public initiative? Education is a public good with lots of spillovers.

You can employ graduates to work for you even if you never paid their fees. That is why education worldwide is subsided by the governments. Government can offer incentives and regulate the sector. The Government also has money.

Interestingly we have built only one public university for the last 50 years, Moi University. The rest have come through promotion of middle level colleges. There might be no problem with such promotions were it not for what they are promoted to offer, social sciences.

No patents are spawned by such studies contrasted with science and technology. While some people might not be happy with that fact and might feel I am degrading their lifelong pursuits, it is time we stopped pretending and face the reality of modern economies, which are driven by science and technology.

Beyond classroom

It is, therefore, unwise to convert an institute of technology into a university to offer social sciences. The private sector will not build the science and technology based infrastructure because it’s expensive and you can make the same money by admitting social science students because of high demand for higher education.

Can the Government demand that new universities will only be charted if they have a science and technology component? And better build such universities and borrow a leaf from India.

The strange thing about education is that once you acquire it, you cannot “undo,” the reason intellectual infrastructure is so critical. This is probably why once a nation gets its intellectual infrastructure right, it keeps growing.

This is particularly so when you extend education beyond classroom to the cultures, stereotypes, self learning and the media.