Re: [kictanet] Kenya's Silicon Savannah & the Need to do more (Evans Ikua)
Evans, You are right on the money. A colleague has recently remarked that the process for introducing new courses or changing existing ones at many of our universities is very arduous and discouraging. Some just choose to give us. As well, we should seriously consider how we deliver university education in the country. Many colleagues I meet hardly have time for research while largely focused on lectures and marking. The large class sizes don't help. .... UASU has in the past raised this and asked for more tutorial/assistantship support so that lecturers focus more on course design/changes, course material & testing preparation, course quality assurance (design, testing/grading/etc.) and research while tutorial fellows/assistants would help with the grunt work: tutorials in small groups and marking. And how about the "missing middle"? Mid-level colleges (polytechnics, etc.) that deal with deep hands on training! (Of course not the Nairobi Aviation types). Baadaye. From: Evans Ikua <ikua.evans@gmail.com> To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Cc: Security List <security@lists.my.co.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Kenya's Silicon Savannah & the Need to do more Message-ID: <CAJ5wL0_V2FyFPs-GMKKWw8hMzH1yikVB9aqm3PiCktgoSfybMw@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" "The bad news is that higher learning in Kenya appears to be more of the business of education than the quality of the programmes and relevance to the market. There is a disconnect between what we are teaching and the needs of local industry, such that universities stand accused of a failure to proactively tune their programmes to market needs. The term ?yellow notes? has been mentioned in relation to use of the same material from year to year by some lecturers and professors, caring less for the dynamic nature of knowledge. ICT education and knowledge is a fast-paced affair. Knowledge and its packaging evolves rapidly, as do the delivery modes. Academic institutions must keep up with these changes if their graduates, especially in ICT ? a key pillar to the President?s Digital Promise - have to find relevance in the market." I totally agree with you there. The way it works in our Universities is that if teaching word processing pays and is easy to do, then that's what they teach. They are under financial pressure but that is no excuse. If they were to invest more in research, then they would come up with more interesting things to teach, and these topics would then match with the Industry demands. Otherwise we will never hear the last of the half-baked graduate story. This is not easy to do, but it pays in the long run. But how far can we see? What we need to ask ourselves is this; what do the best Universities in the world do that we don't? Why is everybody dying to go to MIT and Harvard? When you look at the fees that these Universities charge, it shows that they have enough money to invest in research, and the people who pay that money can see the value that they get. For us, it's a vicious cycle of mediocrity. If we continue teaching word processing in our Universities, we will never produce the next Google or Facebook. The greatest IT companies today came out University halls. What have our Universities produced lately? From what I see, we are producing people who are very skilled in implementing and supporting other people's technologies, and we are even struggling with that! Evans ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matunda Nyanchama, PhD, CISSP; mnyanchama@aganoconsulting.com Agano Consulting Inc.; www.aganoconsulting.com; Twitter: nmatunda; Skype: okiambe ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Manage your ICT risks! We are the experts you need! The trusted partners you deserve!Call: +1-888-587-1150 (Canada) +254-20-267-0743 (Kenya) or info@aganoconsulting.comLicensed by Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"The best revenge is massive success" - Frank Sinatra----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This e-mail, including attachments, may be privileged and may contain confidential or proprietary information intended only for the addressee(s). Any other distribution, copying, use, or disclosure is unauthorized and strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and permanently delete the message, including any attachments, without making a copy. Thank you.
The story of TVET colleges is yet another sad chapter in our education system. All major polytechnics have become universities. That is the reason why we are seeing dubious colleges springing up to satisfy the demand for training. Having said that, if you take a close look at what the middle level colleges are focusing on especially in IT will realize that we have a long way to go. If we spent a fraction of the money that we plan to sink into Konza city on meaningful training and advanced skills development, then the returns would be much greater over time. For us to earn significantly from outsourcing, all we need is skills. Plenty of them. Skills that cannot be found anywhere else on a given price. Being a knowledge economy is not about everybody having access to cheap bandwidth, spending their time on questionable content. It's about earning a major fraction of our GDP from intellectual products and services, including technology. It's about exporting our skills and creativity to the outside world. That's what the top economies in the world are all about. Evans On Feb 25, 2015 6:37 PM, "Matunda Nyanchama via kictanet" < kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
Evans,
You are right on the money.
A colleague has recently remarked that the process for introducing new courses or changing existing ones at many of our universities is very arduous and discouraging. Some just choose to give us.
As well, we should seriously consider how we deliver university education in the country. Many colleagues I meet hardly have time for research while largely focused on lectures and marking. The large class sizes don't help. .... UASU has in the past raised this and asked for more tutorial/assistantship support so that lecturers focus more on course design/changes, course material & testing preparation, course quality assurance (design, testing/grading/etc.) and research while tutorial fellows/assistants would help with the grunt work: tutorials in small groups and marking.
And how about the "missing middle"? Mid-level colleges (polytechnics, etc.) that deal with deep hands on training! (Of course not the Nairobi Aviation types).
Baadaye.
From: Evans Ikua <ikua.evans@gmail.com> To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Cc: Security List <security@lists.my.co.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Kenya's Silicon Savannah & the Need to do more Message-ID: <CAJ5wL0_V2FyFPs-GMKKWw8hMzH1yikVB9aqm3PiCktgoSfybMw@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
"The bad news is that higher learning in Kenya appears to be more of the business of education than the quality of the programmes and relevance to the market. There is a disconnect between what we are teaching and the needs of local industry, such that universities stand accused of a failure to proactively tune their programmes to market needs. The term ?yellow notes? has been mentioned in relation to use of the same material from year to year by some lecturers and professors, caring less for the dynamic nature of knowledge.
ICT education and knowledge is a fast-paced affair. Knowledge and its packaging evolves rapidly, as do the delivery modes. Academic institutions must keep up with these changes if their graduates, especially in ICT ? a key pillar to the President?s Digital Promise - have to find relevance in the market."
I totally agree with you there. The way it works in our Universities is that if teaching word processing pays and is easy to do, then that's what they teach. They are under financial pressure but that is no excuse. If they were to invest more in research, then they would come up with more interesting things to teach, and these topics would then match with the Industry demands. Otherwise we will never hear the last of the half-baked graduate story. This is not easy to do, but it pays in the long run. But how far can we see?
What we need to ask ourselves is this; what do the best Universities in the world do that we don't? Why is everybody dying to go to MIT and Harvard? When you look at the fees that these Universities charge, it shows that they have enough money to invest in research, and the people who pay that money can see the value that they get. For us, it's a vicious cycle of mediocrity. If we continue teaching word processing in our Universities, we will never produce the next Google or Facebook. The greatest IT companies today came out University halls. What have our Universities produced lately? From what I see, we are producing people who are very skilled in implementing and supporting other people's technologies, and we are even struggling with that!
Evans
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matunda Nyanchama, PhD, CISSP; mnyanchama@aganoconsulting.com Agano Consulting Inc.; www.aganoconsulting.com; Twitter: nmatunda; <http://twitter.com/#%21/nmatunda>Skype: okiambe
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Manage your ICT risks! We are the experts you need! The trusted partners you deserve! Call: +1-888-587-1150 (Canada) +254-20-267-0743 (Kenya) or info@aganoconsulting.com Licensed by Communications Authority of Kenya (CA)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The best revenge is massive success" - Frank Sinatra
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This e-mail, including attachments, may be privileged and may contain confidential or proprietary information intended only for the addressee(s). Any other distribution, copying, use, or disclosure is unauthorized and strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and permanently delete the message, including any attachments, without making a copy. Thank you.
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participants (2)
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Evans Ikua -
Matunda Nyanchama