Why Kenyan employers think graduates are not making the grade

By Luke Anami

Employers have raised concern over the quality of graduates from Kenyan universities.

In their quest to raise money from parallel degree programmes, universities are churning out graduates whose relevance to the job market is wanting, the Federation of Kenya Employers said earlier this week.

The scenario

“The curricula of some of our universities are not well tailored to prepare students for the kinds of jobs that exist in the market. There are many factors that have led to this scenario, which universities should be able to address,” FKE Executive Director Jacqueline Mugo said.

Mugo pointed out that one of the things that has watered down academic qualifications is the phasing out of professional diploma courses.

“We at FKE have developed professional courses tailored for the market as we noticed the courses are no longer being offered by our universities. We are willing to partner with our institutions of learning to ensure that their training takes the needs of employers on board.”

Universities have also been accused of enrolling many students without the facilities to cater for the numbers.

Kenya has for years been suffering a quality crisis. This has partly been blamed on uncontrolled higher education expansion, with many constituent colleges being turned into universities amid considerable doubt over the quality of teaching and learning.

Recently, two professional bodies declined to recognise degrees of hundreds of engineering and law graduates from higher learning institutions.

The Engineers Registration Board had at one time declined to recognise engineering degrees from three of Kenya’s leading universities: Egerton, Kenyatta and Masinde Muliro.

A similar fate befell law graduates from some public and private universities after the Council of Legal Education rejected their papers.

Other organisations — including the Pharmacy and Poisons Board, Institute of Surveyors of Kenya, Chartered Institute of Accountants, Medical Practitioners and Dentistry Board, Nursing Council and Veterinary Board — have also been pushing universities to improve degree quality.

Some of the professional bodies called for action largely because they felt universities had low-quality curricula, lacked qualified lecturers or had duplicated courses, and because there was a general lack of professional focus.

Further, a  number of institutions have failed to meet accreditation rules while rushing to meet surging demand for degrees.

Employers argue that the job market is becoming frustrated with quality of graduates.

“There is a demand for specialised skills, which universities have not been able to offer. However, there those universities with a tradition that have been able to do well even with the current challenges of high admissions and lack of lecturers,” Jacob Onkunya, a management consultant and HR expert said.

Onkunya pointed out that despite the outcry from employers, not all university graduates are bad.

“Some universities have a special focus. For instance, the best management students were those trained under the Cambridge system of education. We also have specific universities that have excelled in teaching medicine. No employer in his or her right mind will hesitate to go for graduates from such universities.

“Some universities have been producing those graduates for a long time and employers know the quality and ability of graduates from these institutions, and would therefore prefer to hire them as employees,” Onkunya added