Education: Pursuit of careers or manpower planning?

Kahunga Matsiko We must applaud Ivan Ingabire for his incisive recent treatise about education and career (see “Should nature prevail in shaping our careers?” - The New Times, March 11) coming as it is, from a young person of his age. He raises issues that should send regional planners and thinkers back to the drawing board. Writing about Uganda’s current education in one of his many works, Prof Abdul BK Kasozi, the former executive director at Uganda’s National Council for Higher Education, describes it as being a marketable commodity, a product where education institutions are merchants with products to sell and students are viewed as customers ready to buy education products. Ask any parent or student today and the response you get will vindicate this sage and others who have made similar arguments. This is reflected in such initiatives as the publication of best schools, aggressive marketing and advertising, school rankings, career guidance books, career exposés and related initiatives and events. This raises the fundamental question: what exactly is education and what is its purpose? Does an ‘investor’ have the same perception of education as an academician? And, as some scholars have asked on various occasions, is it possible to reconcile the objectives of those seeking to collect money and those pursuing to collect and create knowledge? In the East African Community (EAC) context, where does this divergence of perceptions, objectives and goals leave regional development? Whereas the pursuit of individual career, dreams and aspirations is not wrong in and of itself, it must be part of a deliberate, focused, concerted, directed strategy in-line with the larger national development goals. Within the framework of the respective EAC national visions, education must play a vital role, guided by the vision the EAC we need and must build. If we are focused on becoming medium-income countries, what are the key ingredients to that? Policies and strategies should, therefore, seek to answer questions that focus on the skill-mix that we shall need to attain the goals as envisaged in our collective vision as a region. During regional EAC conferences, workshops and summits, our planners should be feeding us with periodic, updated data answering such key questions as: How many doctors shall we need, in numbers and categories over the next three decades? Thus how many must we train per year? What category and number of scientists shall we need? Shall we need nuclear scientists, space scientists, insect scientists, animal scientists, soil scientists, water scientists or rainmakers? In the humanities, what number and category of economists, historians, sociologists, shall we need? Shall we be producing skills below or above our regional demand? In the event of either, what are the possible strategies to cater for the deficit or surplus? A living regional plan and strategy should read thus, in respect to skills meant to drive our transformation: “...we target a regional skill-mix that will enable East Africa to...” Grow the market share of domestic and regional agricultural processed products to 95% on supermarket shelves, from the current dismal 5 per cent on average. By this, we target creating 1,000,000 jobs annually along the value chain, over the next 10 years and the sector will boost our domestic tax collection by 40 per cent. Claim 100 per cent of our textile market from discarded garments, linen and other textile products over this period. One cardinal initiative will be to establish textile technology studies in polytechnics in the region, to develop the required skills in the sector. We shall initially import experts from a textile university in China to build local capacity. Redeem 100 per cent of our foot-wear and other leather products market. Like the textile sector, this also is chocking with all manner of discarded products, counterfeits and factory rejects. Our target is two million jobs along the value chain, over 10 years along the value chain, web and linkages. The sector will contribute 30 per cent to our respective domestic tax collection. Cover 100 per cent of rural East Africa with affordable, reliable, electricity through local generation at mini-stations in all rural areas of the region. Polytechnics will manufacture solar panels, solar cookers and lanterns to supplement. This will create 1,000, 000 jobs over the next 10 years. These and similar facts and figures is what we expect from our leaders, planners and thinkers. And this is how education becomes meaningful. It must be aligned to our development agenda; defining goals, based on living facts and figures. Only then shall we carry out meaningful career guidance in the context of our harmonised national and regional manpower planning. China has entire universities dedicated to such sectors as textiles. A few years back in Libya, pupils and students would not study bila mpango. Education planning was tailored to the projected manpower needs of the country. Our current marketplace approach to and perception of education is but producing a time bomb. The author is a partner at Peers Consult Kampala and CET Consulting, Kigali. Email: bukanga@yahoo.com

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Education: Pursuit of careers or manpower planning?