The National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), the regulator of tertiary institutions, says the demand for university education in the country is on the rise.

This demand, the officials say, is attracting both foreign and local investors into the country’s education now busy setting up campuses or completely new and fully-fledged institutions.

University education is good and it is every body’s right to acquire the highest level of education they may wish to, but modern development challenges such as unemployment, may require that consumers of these services be guided to take informed choices.

It is critical to keep in mind that unless university courses are deliberately skewed towards the development of skilled manpower in critical areas that address the a countries skills gaps, traditional degrees per se cannot produce a critical mass of skilled people to drive economic development.

All that is likely to come out of that system is an army of job seekers who, after many years of unsuccessful hunt for employment, remain disillusioned and a financial burden to the very people who spent heavily to fund their degree courses.

This demand for university education is fueled by the growing misconception that a degree is a must for one to "succeed” in life irrespective of what one studies while at university. In other words, going to university is very prestigious and a guarantee to good opportunities in life.

With commercialization of education, investors in the sector will certainly perpetuate this falsehood all in the name of getting numbers that will enable then recoup quick returns on their investment.

Those in the know, say that universities are supposed to be centers of academic excellence with emphasis on research and discovering new ways of doing things or adding value to existing knowledge. This means that universities must have the financial muscle to invest in appropriate tools and facilities to aid the process of research. A university is therefore is a place where a student goes in unskilled but comes out with solid skills and knowledge ready to do work and earn a living.

Yet it turns that our universities, both private and public are struggling – lacking funds and facilities needed to facilitate research-based education. The profit motive in private institutions complicates this situation even much more as investors naturally like providing services at the lowest possible cost in order to make some money for themselves. As a result, they keep churning out people who think that they are educated when in actual sense they simply went through school. 

Educationists say that the cost of running a university, complete with all basic infrastructure, is simply too high for a profit-minded business. In other words a university is not your ordinary business for making money. That is why even government and faith-founded and funded universities are also struggling despite public funds and donations at their disposal to supplement tuition fees paid by students.

Analysts say focusing on vocational training where students are imparted with skills – using hands to produce for the market is a more powerful gun to fight unemployment.

Rwanda is indeed doing well in this area with the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) programme but there is need to guide parents and gullible students to consider TVET as the best option for skills development.

So does the current influx of foreign universities mean a shift in government policy in as far as TVET is concerned? No. Officials say that instead the government is strengthening TVET as a major component of the Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) that is now in its second phase.

"There is no policy shift instead focus on vocational education is being strengthened with the appointment of a deputy minister specifically for vocational education,” says Dr Abdallah Baguma, the acting director of academic quality at the NCHE.

Parents and students should not fall prey to an education system that is grossly disconnected from the challenges of today and the broader development needs of the country. To spend money to simply go through university and get out without skills is not only a waste of money and time, but a huge disservice to the country.

There is no evidence to suggest that countries with many university graduates are more developed than those with few. Yet there is overwhelming evidence to show that countries that emphasize hands-on-skills such as China have higher levels of labor productivity that fuels economic growth.