It is time to abolish liberal arts and humanities in our public universities

I think it is time we abolish liberal arts and humanities in our public universities but before I tell you why I want to share something about myself.

I took BSc Agricultural Economics degree in one of our local public universities. It was not my preferred course, though. I took it out of sheer desperation. The door to technical courses such as Computer Science and even BSc Agriculture was closed, leaving me with no option. Anyway, as I was a JAB (now called kuccps) student, I decided to take it anyway because after all, beggars cannot be choosers. If my parents had the money, I would not have touched the course even with a ten-foot pole.

So back to the course, in our second year, one of our lecturers asked us something that got me thinking. The thing was this: "If your grandmother asked you the name of the course you were taking, what would you tell her in your mother tongue?" After much thought, I realised I could not easily give her a satisfactory answer.

In another incident, a neighbour came to our home seeking my help to treat her cow. He had heard that I was taking an agriculture-related course so she thought I could naturally help her. I could not help her as you can now tell.

The two incidents convinced me I was taking the wrong course. If I could not even tell my granny what class I was taking, what was its whole point anyway?

After graduating, I could not get a job. I sent more than 100 applications until I got tired and stopped the whole madness. The course was hopelessly theoretical and so nothing I could do to help myself. I got a teaching gig in a nearby secondary school, but that was not what I wanted. The other job available was treating our neighbour’s cows, but I did not have the skills to do that.

Looking at my experience and those of others, I think that offering liberal arts and humanities to 80 percent to all students, as the case is now, is a waste of resources. The government spent close to half a million shillings to educate me, but I think that is money thrown in a pit latrine. In a resource deficient country like ours, what is the point of forcing students to take courses they have not inclination for?

 Also, can our nation develop by teaching more sociology or the history of Arabs in the Kenyan coast? It is true that Herbamas theory of public sphere can advance democracy but what is happening in Kenya right now. Ethnicity and tribalism have killed all hope of rational discussion.

Students instinctively know that some courses are a waste of time. For instance, when my peers and I was admitted for a BA General, we but tried to enroll for computer science, engineering, agriculture, and other courses we felt were better but what happened? For engineering and agriculture, they said we had to have done physics in high school. To enroll for computer science, we needed a mean grade of an A minus, but I know parallel students who took the same course with a C plus mean grade.

I have also come across an interesting statistics; a quarter of all students admitted by KPCCUS do not take up their places. The question is why. The answer is simple, instead of taking BA Anthropology at “the” University of Nairobi, it is better to take an online course in web/mobile development and start earning asap.

I think I have made my case. The question now is what the government should do. The first thing is the government should emphasize more on technical courses. I am happy the government has adopted Differentiated Unit Funding formula where universities offering technical courses get more funding. That is something that should have happened like yesterday.

Secondly, universities should stop discrimination. Teaching computer science for instance just requires a large hall and hundreds of second-hand computers. It also does not make sense to enroll parallel students for a law degree with a B and deny and A-minus student the same privilege just because the government sponsors him. Is government money not money?

I also think we should adopt American university model where a student can, for instance, major in engineering and minor in literature. When I was taking history, the average class had something like ten students, and yet the lecturer was earning a salary equivalent to that our Botany 100 teacher whose class had more than a thousand students.

Finally, no student should be forced to take a course they do not want. If a student intends to enroll for medicine and cannot meet the cut at the UON or KU, the government should give the student a fee voucher to register elsewhere such as MKU or even in Uganda.