November 22, 2022 Africa/Nairobi
In 2018 the fate of more than 1000 students of the Presbyterian University of East Africa (link below)was terribly altered after the institution was shut down for several malpractices. The then acting education cabinet secretary Fred Matiang’i revoked the operation license of the university following recommendations made by the commission for university education, (CUE). The most consolation the students got was a shout out on their story by NTV’s Trevor Ombija reporting on the story. Meanwhile in 2022 a student is excited when a class or school day is cancelled. They probably don’t understand that the world trade organization declared education as a tradable good and they are paying the school or getting in debt for the school to provide a service. To this type of student i’d say, imagine paying upto 100k for WiFi and the service provider cuts it off for a whole day. If you don’t get it by that analogy then God help you.
A journal on Quality Assurance in higher education by Dr. Emmily M. Sitati (link below)explores the history and quality of university education with a focus on legal education provision and its quality assurance by CUE and Council of Legal Education (CLE). Nobody told you this and ignorance won’t hold up in court, but the next time you apply for a university education you might want to ensure a couple of things are in order about the institution. These include the staff (from your Dean to Lecturers), the facilities (libraries, classes etc), the curriculum and i could go on but these among other standards for accreditation of your university are set out in the Legal Education (Accreditation & Quality Assurance) Regulations 2016 and the university education act 2012. These are just two among other quality assurance tools that if your university doesn’t satisfy,over periodic checkups by the council, could mean your degree is worthless. There are both internal and external tools of quality assurance used so atleast now you know what you’re doing when asked to grade,rate or review your lecturer. The pertinent question to ask yourself is whether your university of choice meets the quality assurance requirements and whether it’s accreditation license is validated. The work of your student body isn’t to replace the school’s TV system or pool table with a bigger one, make use of your leaders wisely. With the composition of the CLE and CUE I can assure you they take their job seriously to ensure the value of education isn’t so watered down as we almost inevitably head into that future. I won’t even comment on the perception that the law program by most institutions of higher learning is a “graded milking cow” as Dr. Emily Sitati writes. Yet students will walk around like Nairobi Aviation college wasn’t shut down for malpractices to put it lightly.(link below).It is incumbent upon you as the student to also take your education seriously.And as you collect student debt, the next time somebody gets excited about class or school being cancelled, just look at them, take a keen look at their excited face, however dense they appear empathize with their blissful ignorance and ask them to join the Spotlight Club.
Today’s chicken soup for the soul is ‘the college dropout’ a studio album by Kanye west(link below) and to quote from it;
“Hey, Jimmy, where you going?
I don't know where I'm going
My dad died, and uh, he left me his degrees…
Because all the regular homeless people have newspaper, and look what I have
These are documented
My father left them to me
And I'm gonna leave them to my kids
I'm gonna learn too
I'm gonna get super smart, so I too can die without money
But I'll be the smartest dead guy”~
Presbyterian Uni -
https://youtu.be/BhwS-_vRwf0
Dr. Emmily Sitati-
https://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jhss/papers/Vol.%2022%20Issue6/Version-8/F2206084456.pdf
Nairobi Aviation-
https://youtu.be/zl2lwiRt9AM
The college dropout-
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaVLwDsB6fVvaXxzkz3J2Rv247F6gEdRd