Tribalism killing our university education, says Prof Magoha

Prof George Magoha’s 347-page autography titled ‘Tower of Transformational Leadership’ that was released last week is a thrilling tale of the academic’s exploits where an unsettling personal life is woven into remarkable achievements at the different posts he has held in the education sector in Kenya. A former VC of the University of Nairobi where he served for ten years, Prof Magoha now chairs the Kenya National Examinations Council and is also chairman of Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board. He is a full professor of surgery and a consultant urologist.

You have an outstanding list of achievements. What drives you? It is a combination of the values I learnt at Starehe Boys Centre and the fact that I was brought up surrounded by the highest level of poverty. One of the ethos we learnt at Starehe was that once you touch something, you have to leave it better than you found it. This has been my motivation in my years at UoN where I competitively rose through the ranks to be the VC, and also at Knec where we aim to sustain a clean examinations system.

What message was in your mind as you wrote your book? I wanted to record the transformation process at the University of Nairobi. I came in at UoN when the university was nowhere on the world map. Structures were simply not working. In the book, therefore, I talk about three towers of transformation. Two of these immortal towers are the fountain of knowledge and the University of Nairobi Tower that stands tall on the university grounds. The third mortal tower is me at the centre of this narrative.

You are one of the most widely published, with more than 60 research publications, researchers in the region. What is your secret? Research is not a difficult task especially when you are in a field that you are passionate about. The key requirement for a meaningful research is proper management of time and discipline. During my most active research years, I accorded three hours a day just for research and ensured that I stuck to this culture. Apart from being achievable, research is the only means to make universities excel. And there are usually funds an institution sets aside for research. When I was at the University of Nairobi, there was about Sh300 million that was set aside for research. By the time I was leaving, this amount was at Sh4.5 billion. This money came from trained scholars at the university who wrote appealing proposals that won international money.

As a former commissioner of the Commission for University Education, what would you say is the root cause of the challenges that universities grapple with? It is tribalism and clannism that is killing university education in Kenya. The rate of expansion of universities is alarmingly high, yet the motives behind this expansions are tribal and political. Within a range of a few kilometers in a certain localities, you are bound to find up to six universities which could otherwise be combined into a single university to maximise on the few available resources. Tribes are competing in terms of who has the most universities. People are creating universities merely as a source of employment when they are not sure whether it is the central government or the county government will fund them. Again, there is a limited number of trained academic staff. There is only about 20, 000 of them, with the bulk based in major universities. As a result, smaller universities are using half-baked personnel to teach the students. My advice is that universities should realise that they can fund themselves through research. I also believe that CUE can do with a stronger leadership.

For the ten years you were VC at the University of Nairobi there were no student strikes. What was the secret behind your management? The secret is simple; be bold, strong, fair and firm. While it is sometimes difficult to be all these things, it actually worked for me. I climbed the helm of a university that was plagued by all forms of glitches including frequent student unrests, laziness from both academic and support staff, an administration that was plagued by huge debts and many other challenges. Very fast, I started dealing with individual lecturers at the university and showed the door those who refused to work. I engaged the students more effectively and also quickly modernised all the systems at the university including the financial and examination systems. I realised that the university had a lot of money which had all the years been lost through shady tunnels. Students had even been accessing the examination system and changing their marks. Suddenly the university had a lot of money and I cleared all the debts. We were also able to make huge savings. I supervised the infrastructural projects at the institution at the ground level and engaged in simple activities such as cleaning the students’ toilets. By the time I was leaving the institution, the University of Nairobi Towers was 90 per cent complete.

What did you aim to achieve by cleaning the students’ toilets? When I assign work, I put myself into it to ensure that it is done to perfection. In fact, I remember spending three weeks of a particular Christmas at the University of Nairobi cleaning and seeing to the repair the students’ toilets and the ladies’ showers. Though the act angered most of my colleagues, I know it didn’t make me any less of a professor.

As a medical practitioner, what opportunities do you think are available for the Kenyan health sector? There are great opportunities availed by the expansion of hospitals by county governments. The national government has also expanded training of doctors from 500 to about 1, 000 that we are looking at in the near future. There is, however, the obvious challenge of overpopulation with the current doctor patient ratio worrying standing at 1:1000. We only have 14 neurosurgeons in Kenya with the majority based in Nairobi while most places in Kenya lack even a single such medical practitioner. This is a serious matter. We also are yet to realise that most cases referred for surgery both locally and outside the country have better and cheaper alternatives here at home.

You are doing a great job at Knec alongside the education CS. What are your plans to ensure a sustainable effective examination system? My only comment here is a promise that in future, very impressive results will be posted. I can assure you that everybody is doing their part. Teachers are teaching while students are seriously learning. We are happy to have successfully done away with all examination cartels who stained the unit for long. Our focus is to ensure that examinations are done in highly monitored areas equipped with CCTV cameras. There is nothing anyone will do under the table.

Any future personal plans? I have developed a passion for children and here is where I intend to stay for a long time. Children have many challenges at home and in school. Some are neglected by their parents and caregivers while at school they are made to carry heavy bags of books. At the moment, we want to take care of this critical formative years of a child.