CERTIFICATION
Should College Certificates Have An Expiry Date ?
By William Kalombo
This question was floated in a recent panel discussion moderated by NTV ’ s Olive Burrows at the 2nd Nation Digital Summit on Tapping and Nurturing Talent in a Digitally Disruptive Environment by Dr . Nicholas Letting ( KASNEB ), Nelly Agyeman-Gyamfi ( Moringa Schools ), and Dr . Ehud Gachugu ( KEPSA ).
The effect of the question was akin to a passenger in a car moving at a hundred kilometers an hour suddenly asking whether anybody remembers tightening the wheel nuts when they had stopped to change the puncture .
The car is still cruising well but the mere question changes the confidence that everyone has about the safety of their mode of transport and it becomes imperative to answer the question before any further distance can be covered .
On face value this question seems inane , was it seriously questioning diplomas that have taken a twenty year plus period to earn ? Was the question asking whether the experts assembled in the summit had valid ‘ driving ’ licenses ?
On deeper reflection I realized that question just created more questions and a need to confront what we understand as an education system and whether the process unveils numerous gaps on the whole question of certification .
It is common practice for manufacturers to make products with usage guidelines , dosages and even storage protocols to ensure proper product use but manufacturers assume that nothing lasts forever and hence they include an expiry date .
A little bit of research revealed a disturbing fact that as many as forty five percent of current jobs in the market will be obsolete in ten years ’ time and it appears that the Covid pandemic just accelerated the rate of obsolescence .
In the same line of argument should the college certificates have a caveat attached to them that the said degrees will become moribund after say five years unless a mechanism is in place to ensure that they remain relevant as time goes by ?
It is actually interesting that when one graduates , the citation states that one is given the power to read and practice that which they have qualified in , suggesting that the education system did foresee a situation when what they have certified becoming irrelevant over time .
“ Acquiring a degree simply demonstrates that one is teachable and that one has the ability to retain basic facts on the subject and by implication they are capable of building on the basics to learn both theoretically and hopefully in practice too . ”
If I am a businessman and I regularly read the Economist , the Harvard Business Review and the Business Daily , does that count as fulfilling my part of the bargain to keep abreast of what is current and relevant in the business environment ? Is this just reading or continuous education ?
In Kenya we took a dive into the educational unknown by switching from the British system and introducing the controversial 8-4- 4 system which has undergone so many curriculum upgrades and revisions that it is unrecognizable from the original .
The country is now transitioning into the CBS system which the government claims is more appropriate to Kenyan needs . The hue and cry that has met the introduction of the new system suggests that we are in for a rough ride .
What we have ended up with in Kenya is a mish-mash of several educational systems running concurrently and one has to wonder about which one is ‘ correct ’ and the status of all those Kenyans that qualified on previous systems .
The education system in Kenya has always been a hot potato and especially when it was declared that it would be both free and compulsory . The assumption was that education is at the core of human capital development and yet the system is in question .
Notwithstanding that the education system in Kenya is neither free nor compulsory the more pertinent question is whether the education system is broken . Do we believe
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MAL 47 / 22 ISSUE