The course you choose to study depending on your ability can contribute in securing a job or ‘tarmacking.’
The Mo Ibrahim Foundation report notes that many young people are driven into taking some courses, not because they have passion for them, but because they appear most lucrative in the job market.
This view was supported by the findings of another survey done two years ago by a communications company, Well Told Story, that reported that the country’s younger generation only cares about money and that is the reason why after prolonged unemployment, most assume that taking up an additional course is the only option.
This is what seems to have befallen Martin Mutitu who graduated from Kenyatta University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Education (Arts) degree.
He says potential employers did not offer him more than Sh10,000 a month as salary. He decided to go back to college.
“A graduate earning Sh10,000? How will I pay my bills? How will I eat? How will I send some money home?” he wonders.
But even after graduating with a Master’s degree from the same institution, the situation has not changed.
Mr Mutitu, who still does menial jobs to survive, was last week on Friday pictured holding a placard along Nairobi’s Thika Road near Ngara stage appealing to potential employers to give him a job.
Others do what they can to make ends meet. Eddy Wandera, a graduate Maseno University has been working as a morgue attendant in Kisumu. Eddy graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Criminology in 2017.
Opportunities for employment are at an all-time low yet education institutions continue to graduate at least 50,000 graduates every year. This year, the country will have slightly above 90,000 students joining various colleges and universities.
This means that even though the rate of employment is stagnating, the number of graduates from our universities will double in five years to come.
But is this all there is to it? Less than a month ago, the Commission for University education released a list of about 133 unaccredited courses offered in 26 public, private and university constituent colleges.
According to statistics from universities, the mentioned courses affect about 10,000 students with an unknown number of graduates from the said fields already in the job market.