Varsity curricula must be practical

my daily needs. I sometimes beg from my friends too.”
Ochen attributes his fate to the fact that the job creation level in Uganda is too low, yet the number of people graduating from universities is skyrocketing.
The few job opportunities available require people with experience which thousands of graduates lack.
Ochen’s situation is a dilemma that thousands of African graduates are faced with.
Many education experts are of the view that today’s university curricula need to be urgently overhauled, if the students are to graduate with relevant skills required in today’s ever-changing job market.
According to Fagil Monday, a former headmaster, education commissioner and now a prominent Ugandan education consultant, “Uganda and African countries at large should overhaul their university education curricula and replace them with vocational related curricula.”
Theory-based curricula cannot spur the critical mass of skilled graduates needed to transform today’s African economies. African countries should start training its students according to the needs of their economies.” Universities are supposed to be the centre of knowledge of production and dissemination where learners are equipped with relevant knowledge and skills that make them capable of solving societal problems. I have also visited a number of African universities and established networks with alumni from different African universities. Believe me, African universities are far from this assertion.
A big percentage of knowledge production and dissemination in Africa is happening outside its universities. Most of it is happening in the informal sector that is dominated by school dropouts and people with no formal education at all, who interestingly have proved to be very innovative and innovative. When you look at excellent art pieces, good herbal medicines, the nice music, and nice cultural drama, nice welded pieces, you will be mesmerised.
All the well-established universities in Africa offer agriculture, music, dance, drama, business and economics related courses. How come graduates of these studies are not amongst the successful farmers, musicians and business owners that Africa has and is producing? A big percentage of leading musicians, actors, actresses, farmers and business owners never went through African universities. This to me, indicates that, there is a problem with African university curricula. Visit any African university towards an examination period and you will be surprised. You will meet students in libraries, lecture halls and some seated under tree shades, busy cramming notes preparing for the exams. The exams are also set in such a way that if you don’t cram you will not pass.
Many graduands find themselves suffering from identity career crisis, as they cannot rightly identify areas where to best apply their competencies. Try asking any job searching graduate in Africa which kind of job you can help to connect him/her to, she/he will tell you, “Any. I don’t mind.” This implies that African universities are passing out graduates who do not know what they can do best.
The way the university curricula are developed also raises many questions. Enough research is not done prior to their formation and many of them are not developed in consultation with employers, which if done, would greatly help in teaching the students the relevant courses that are needed in the job market. African universities should establish links with employers and endeavour to always consult them when developing their curricula.
Today’s university teaching that encourages cramming needs to be urgently overhauled. University teaching should be 100 percent research oriented.
This is the only way through which inventions and innovations accompanied by groundbreaking researches will crop-up. Libraries and research labs of universities such as University of Nairobi, Cape Town University and Makerere University among others, are poorly equipped and cannot support effective researching.
African governments must step up funding to their universities and design practical relevant education policies that direct their universities to overhaul today’s cramming based learning and replace it with research based learning which in my opinion is the only way through inventions, innovations and ground breaking researches which are badly needed, will be birthed in Africa.
l Hategeka is a Ugandan based independent governance researcher, public affairs analyst and writer.