Unemployment? According to ‘a new study’ quoted by the Daily Nation, It takes a university graduate an average of five years to secure a job in Kenya today. By the end of those five years, the universities will have churned pit more than 250,000 degree-holding graduates into the market.
Well, you would think, finding someone to employ should be easy! Wrong! In the consulting jobs that I have handled over the past five or so years, my (and my clients’) biggest challenge has been to find qualified employees. Note the word ‘qualified’. It does not include, in my case, experience. It means, primarily, someone with relevant practical skills in their area of training; someone willing to work a full day; willing to learn; will churn out quality work — keep accurate records, write a type with all five fingers and come up with a basic report; will not steal from the employer; and will work with minimum supervision. That combination does not seem to feature in the profiles of most people that show up for interviews. Whatever curriculum most graduates – of universities and of lower level, diploma or certificate institutions follow seems to pursue a different kind of training.
Nationally, look at what this has done to us: we hardly plan. Politics is more popular than work. Our leaders steal money that should be training our youth or taking them to the olympics.
At the professional level, just check out and see how ‘old’ our architectural practice code is (It came to my attention when I discovered some new developments in construction designs and wanted the use them in a project, only to be told by the architect that our building code — adopted from the British before independence and, at the time I wanted to, would not accommodate new developments!). It is only in May 2016, 50+ years after independence from Britain, that, after many buildings collapses leading to the death of many people that at last an announcement was made that “the government (had) approved discarding of the British standards in favour of European norms now in use globally” (http://www.nation.co.ke/business/Kenya-adopts-new-building-regulations/996-3214318-1kg3ym/index.html).
At home level, try to have a set of ceramic tiles fitted. Or a water system installed. Or a sewer system fixed. or some fine finishes. Wah! It’s like you are trying to make a rocket. For fun, I introduce, in a social gathering, “my frustrations” in these arena, and, predictably, a beehive of talk stirs up. It sounds like a disturbed hornet’s nest. If we are in a rural setting, I ask, who can please find me someone reliable I can work with in the shamba and I provoke the same reaction, contextualized to a rural setting: how my cow perennially recorded only eight liters no matter what I fed it, till I ‘Abunwasi’ went for Christmas holiday and I milked the cow myself, only to fetch 16 liters; how ‘Mukora’ weeds my farm by burying up weed and it comes back up again in a matter of days.
Haron Wachira 