Training paper engineers will not take Kenya far – Arch. Lemmy Bobu...

Training paper engineers will not take Kenya far – Arch. Lemmy Bobu Nyogesa

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The training of engineers and technicians has failed to define a role for itself through the inflexibility of policy-makers, higher education establishments and some employers towards the acquisition of knowledge and skills.

The problem can be summed up by looking at it on two fronts – from the market point of view, where engineers are underpaid, and from the training aspect, where employers have reservations concerning the quality of engineers and technicians our institutions produce. This problem has led to many engineers changing careers midway and becoming administrators, or leaving the country for ‘‘greener’’ pastures in Southern Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi.

Before joining university, the young people who aspire to become engineers are fed with the myth about this ‘‘big job’’ that pays a ‘‘big salary’’ immediately they graduate. Their dreams and hopes are quashed when, on graduation, they earn less than Sh20,000 on their first job.

Most opt to take additional courses such as Masters of Business Administration so that they can secure better-paying jobs as managers and administrators. Others take courses in accounts, computer, or languages, hoping to enhance their chances of getting better-paying jobs.

As technical education strains to find a niche in the market and to update its relevance, we can learn from the Indian example as Prof Alfred V. Otieno says. When India was faced with proliferation of low-performing engineering colleges, it created six centres of excellence, and these institutes of technology put the country on the global map.

Our polytechnics, colleges and the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology lean towards training in practical craft, while most of our universities, and more so the University of Nairobi, lean unduly towards producing individuals who are strong in design abilities but with little practical skills. They have to be re-trained for at least two years to become competent.

This is not to say that a graduate from the University of Nairobi is of no value, but, as technology advances and the needs of our economy change, the university is being left behind. It has not updated its machinery and other equipment used for training engineers for a long time.

The engines mechanical engineering students use have been in the laboratories since the 1970s, and the drawing tables architecture students use have been used by all the architects on the market! JKUAT, with the help of the Japanese Government, is technologically advanced, but the training unduly emphasises practical utility at the expense of creative and design abilities.

The University of Nairobi emphasises creativity and design at the expense of practical utility. What is needed is a balance of design and creative abilities with practical utility in a single graduate because both skills are needed. The policy that has led to polytechnics being converted into university constituent colleges must be stopped altogether.

The practice is robbing the labour force of vital hands-on skills that our universities cannot produce because that is not what universities are supposed to do. In the construction industry, we have witnessed an erosion of quality workmanship that followed the disappearance of village polytechnics. They used to absorb primary school leavers, training them in masonry, woodwork and carpentry, joinery, leatherwork and welding.

If you look at our current constructions, the craftsmen cannot make a straight motor joint, compared to the ones done in the 1970s and 1980s simply because there is a shortage of the skills in the market, courtesy of bad policies. We should not train ‘‘boardroom’’ people at the expense of those who will carry the actual stone and brick. Also, the government must indirectly set a minimum salary for engineers to prevent the brain-drain. One way is to absorb more engineers into the public sector and pay them well. This is what it did with architects.

The government embarked on recruiting fresh graduate architects, offering them pay and benefits more attractive than what the private sector offered. This led to a shortage in the private sector and employers had to pay more to retain their staff. This led to many young architects working in foreign countries returning home to take up jobs.

Source: Daily Nation

1 COMMENT

  1. Everyone coming from a learning institution is a paper professional. It takes the nurturing of the industry players to turn them into real professionals. Problem with our country, people are expected to be born with experience yet those who expect others to have experience were once nurtured by unselfish people. Give graduates their due chance. Once the concept has been grasped, paper wise or practical wise it can be put to good use when graduates are mentored. All i am saying is that graduates will graduate with different abilities but the industry will help them become useful professionals. When respect for engineering comes from the market, the graduates and industry practitioners will of course rise to the occasion.

  2. It is only in kenya where those studying Engineering are undertaking CPAs talk about confusion in the name of diversification..|Education is not a portfolio you specialise but this is Kenya where the Ministry of Transport is headed by a person who can’t spell the words ‘electric train’

  3. we r not paper engineers as such…its the system stupid! kenyan engineers av shown what they can do in cos. like safcom n other tech oriented cos…am an eng graduate of uon n the labs r obsolete yes, but when we get exposure on how a system works..trust me, even the chinese wont beat us….but with the poor pay after all those years solving complex equations…..i’d rather work in sudan as an admin than an engineer with a big name in gok who cannot even buy a round baada ya kazi!!

  4. now finally you guys are understanding me! it is not the title behind your name but the quality of the bread you take to your kids by the end of the day that matter! professor my foot!

  5. As much as I agree with this observation, it is as much as I disagree with it.
    The greatest problem with our universities is they dont teach students how to “think”,but they teach them how to conform to the conventional.
    Universities should be the source of innovation and discoveries through thorough research.
    To me, Kenyan Universities are an extension of high school,their mode of teaching is an exact replica of the same high school system.
    See students trying to memorise notes on handouts as they await to do exams the next day,see students bootlicking their lecturers hard to score a first class.see final students burn the night oil putting flowers on their CVs ready for application for work.
    After the above,hear the cries like on this article..ooh I cannot get work,ooh I am underpaid,oohh I will change career, and such.
    Mike Zuckerberg,the creator of facebook went to university to become an innovator thru serious research ,the university taught him how to ‘think”,He diddn’t write any CV to apply for work anywhere,he didnt cry of being underpaid and he has never contemplated of changing his career.He is now a Billionaire becos he wasnt taught to be a conformist.
    Larry Page,the university taught him how to ‘think’,thru serious research.He innovated the fastest internet search engine “Google”.He is now very rich and isnt complaining.
    Bill Gates..we know his story,the university helped him to ‘think’ and innovate an operating system,eventually he became the richest man on earth.

    Let me advise my fellow graduates,however much your employer will pay you, you will never be satisfied.whenever you wake up every morning,know that you are a tool for your boss,he will toss you up and down to make sure you make a lot of money for him, he will make sure you get to work early and leave late,seeing how much you are making for him and the percentage he is paying you,you will continue with your lamentations till he sacks you.

    SO,please,young Kenyan fresh graduates, rather than crying loudly that you want to be paid more by your boss,work hard to become a thinker like the examples I have given above,get experince and learn the tricks in the practise as fast as possible if the university didnt teach you that,then you become your own boss.
    Push for our local universities to emphasize more in teaching students how to create opportunities and becoming self reliant.

    BE WELL

    • i like this push ,how do you push a profesor who thinks to become one u just need to continue presenting papers to others who preseted [papers to be what he wants to be ,truly i tell let this profesor notion in engineering die and let an engineer be an engineer just like is the case with medical doctors

  6. I completely agree with Kingáru.

    I will also add that it does not matter if you went to a university or what the university taught you. It is all up to you to make things work for you.

  7. not until this truth is brought out clear we might waste talented brains for the next one century not that they dont perform butthat theycan do better a challenge those mandated to learn public universities to wake to this demand, for the profesors and the doctors in this field to roll out and to put their paper work in to use ,for diploma holders esp from the poly universities to join hands and mount practical challengesin the field ,for student engineers to accept nothintg less of a chalanging practical aproach

  8. allow me to add that it is not the system but the atitude i have tried monting a challenge only to be seen as an activist ,am clear in my mind what i want and i know many are one fact i willet people know if the two national polys retain their aims and resist ……………….. ,and if engineers mandated to learn them know what they can do for the country engineering can change as a whole.a an institution without modern workshops and labs that claims to train engineers shld accept the facts and roll out practical steps to rectify the shortcomings it is not time for blame games ,not time to introduce new courses it is technology time both student and lec engineers should change their atitude ,it is not the sylabuses may be the resources except time jameni tuamke dont just be called an engineer act juyst like engineers elsewhere in the world mtu ajue careetr yake na afahamu niayake wakati ni sasa .universities should be centers of practical change ,one that is measurable and acheivable.next time let us coment on the projects we are undertaking wheather prof ,doc ;msc bsc undergraduate,dip,cert,or a mechanic the chalange sio [pasing blame

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