Micheal Mundia Kamau
                P.O. Box 58972
                00200 City Square
                Nairobi
                Kenya

                3rd April 2004

             FACULTY OF INEPTITUDE

The refusal by Kenya’s University Staff Academic Union (UASU), to
quickly
accept the lucrative pay package offered by the Kenya government on
31st
March 2004 is a sign of misplaced judgement on the part of UASU. UASU
is
unreasonably insisting that the government offer be backdated to July
2003.
The government on it’s part insists that the the lucrative new pay deal
commence in July 2004 most probably, to allow for the increments to be
factored into 2004/2005 fiscal budget. UASU should consider itself very
lucky to have gotten a pay deal that ensures that it’s lowest paid
members
earn a consolidated monthly salary of 73,046 Kenya shillings per month
(approximately US $ 950). A salary of US $ 950 per month is a laughable
pittance in the west and elsewhere in the world, but in Kenya it
accords one
a comfortable middle class standard of living complete with a car and
several other accessories associated with status in today’s world. Were
it
possible, many Kenyan laymen like myself, would quickly submit
applications
for jobs as lecturers.

UASU ought to grow up fast and wake up to the harsh realities in Kenya
today. The economy continues to shrink despite the massive goodwill
that
characterised the election victory of the very government that has
offered
UASU a new pay deal. The IMF and World Bank are continually reminding
President Kibaki’s government that it made a firm pledge to drastically
reduce public expenditure, which is where the salaries of lecturers
fall.
Major staff retrenchments are slated for the Kenyan civil service over
the
coming year. Giant and strategic state corporations like
telecommunications
monolith Telkom Kenya, Kenya Railways Corporation, Kenya Power and
Lighting
Company, Postal Corporation of Kenya, Kenya Commercial Bank and
National
Bank of Kenya, are targeted for privatisation, some, by June 2004.
Parliament is currently in session and it is expected that the
government
sponsored Privatisation Bill will be passed into law, enabling the
privatisation of state corporations to begin. The immediate implication
is
that there shall be massive staff layoffs. The Permanent Secretary in
the
Ministry of Transport and Communications, Prof. Gerishon Ikiara, has
already
announced that Telkom Kenya is to lay off 11,000 workers by June 2004.

The revised minimum consolidated lecturers’ salary of US $ 950 per
month is
in itself difficult to justify. Academic standards in Kenya have fallen
to
the point that association with graduates of Kenyan public universities
is
shunned. No effort has been made to mould individuals that will be
sought
after by institutions and corporations. In the 1970s, 1980s and early
1990s
audit firms PriceWaterHouseCoopers(then Price Waterhouse), Delloite &
Touche(then known as Delloitte, Haskins and Sells), and Coopers and
Lybrand,
used to make high profile recruitments of top graduating students at
the
University of Nairobi and Kenyatta University. A career in these audit
firms
was cherished as it ensured long term executive entry into other
blue-chip
companies in and outside Kenya. This is hardly the case anymore.
Manufacturers like Unilever (then known as East African Industries),
British
American Tobacco Kenya Limited, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola and Kenyan
Breweries
Limited also keenly sought a diverse range of Kenyan public university
graduates for training in different fields such as engineering,
marketing
and management. There was more pride and purpose in those days. The few
remaining blue-chip companies that there are in Kenya today however
shun
graduates of local public universities, preferring to deal with
graduates
from universities in the developed world, or graduates of local private
universities such as the United States International University
(U.S.I.U.)
or Daystar University. Kenyan society at large shuns and despises
graduates
of Kenyan public universities highlighting the difficult predicament
that
this country is in.

Intellectualism has also taken a back seat amongst the student
population.
Hardships have forced the student population to concentrate almost
wholly on
basic survival. University halls of residence have been transformed
into
retail markets and catering units. Female students have even gone as
far
prostituting, their plight abandoned by an uncaring, unfeeling and
indifferent UASU, and society at large. Kenyan Public Universities were
a
hot bed for intellectualism and radicalism in earlier years so much so
that
the establishment deemed it necessary to build friendships with student
bodies. Few can forget the numerous and publicised “cups of tea” that
former
President Moi had with student officials and students at large. Former
President Moi used to host large university student delegations at
mainly
his Kabarak home, to no doubt placate the radicalism. Moi even planted
undercover intelligence officers amongst the student population to
gather
information. On a political front, this is the seriousness with which
public
university students were regarded in those days. Moi devised many ways
to
keep university students in check such as the generously funded but now
defunct University Students Accomodation Board (USAB). Hardship,
ineptitude
and mismanagement have however killed intellectualism at Kenyan public
universities and Moi’s ploys are no longer necessary.

Academic excellence amongst the lecturers themselves has also
stagnated.
Despite their high academic qualifications in different fields, Kenya
is not
renowned for producing top notch world class acdemics and
professionals.
None of them is say, a nobel prize recipient, to justify a minimum
salary of
even half of US $ 950 per month. Kenyan lecturers are not known to be
“poached” by world renowned organisations. A spoilt and pampered lot,
Kenyan
lecturers are under the deception that their academic papers are the
one and
only key to success. Instead of aggressively pursuing their callings,
Kenyan
lecturers have diverted their energies and pursuits to short sighted
“get
rich quick”commercial ventures such as Public Service
Vehicles(“matatus”)
and construction of low cost housing. If Albert Einstein and famed
cardiologist Christain Bernard had only remotely entertained such
thoughts,
this world would have made lesser strides.  It is said that the
technology
used in the American Apollo space missions of the 1960s/1970s, is what
has
helped revolutionalise personal computers. This foresight is lacking in
Kenya and academic excellence has been seriously compromised with
lecturers
lurching greedily at any subsidiary lecturing job available. Their own
children do not even attend local public universities and are promptly
dispatched to overseas campuses courtesy of their connections. None of
them
can lay claim to being even remotely linked to a world success story
such as
the phenomenal growth of personal computers. In the humanities, growth
stagnated with brilliant writers such as Professor Ngugi wa Thiongo and
Professor Francis Imbuga. Kenya’s Professor Washington Jalango however
deserves praise for brokering a last minute deal between Nelson
Mandela’s
African National Congress (ANC) and Magosothu Buthelezi’s Inkatha
National
Party (INP), prior to the near stalled South African elections of 1994.
This
is the profile that Kenyan academics need to aspire for.

Kenyan education standards are in a terrible mess. It no longer even
pays
that much to pursue an education abroad. This clearly means that the
problem
is not with our education system or facilities, but with our attitude.
However prestigious an education that an individual has, it can never
make
up for character. This country lacks the character to change and the
character to discard with misplaced beliefs and notions and adopt the
one
notion that matters most: hard work. No one seems to want to work hard
anymore in this country and this is where the problem lies. We leave
half
completed work on our desks to rush for evening classes in the false
belief
that the proverbial elusive solution lies here. The generation that
will
next prosper will be made up of those that we most despise i.e. least
educated but most industrious. Even if founding President Kenyatta had
not
attended the London School of Economics, he would still have become
President of Kenya because of his drive and initiative. Even if current
President Kibaki had not attended Uganda’s Makerere University, he
would
have become President of Kenya because of his drive and initiative.
Former
President Moi did not attend either, but he still became President of
Kenya
because of his drive and initiative. It takes more than academic
papers. It
takes more than US $ 950 per month.



Michael Mundia Kamau