Educationists in East Africa are concerned about the quality of higher education as they seek to raise the number of students joining the region’s universities.

The Inter University Council of East Africa (IUCEA) has said that the EAC has the least university enrolment globally, a shortcoming that has hampered the region’s economic and social transformation efforts.

Statistics from IUCEA show that the region has about 720,000 students enrolled in the 178 universities in the five countries. Institutions of higher learning are critical in producing the human resources needed for production and economic growth.

“For a long time, the emphasis was on basic education, not on higher education. This was because of the recommendations of the World Bank to African countries that higher education was a luxury and so it was ignored,” said Prof Mayunga Nkunya, executive secretary of IUCEA.

In the 1960s, the World Bank advised Africa to develop specific skills that its countries needed. Good returns were expected from basic education (primary level), according to the Bank.

This forced governments to redirect resources from higher education to primary education because the Bank pegged its funding to that. The Bank also advised privatisation of the higher education saying it was a luxury.

The result of that policy has seen an impressive enrolment at primary school level under Universal Primary Education (UPE) initiatives. In Uganda, Ministry of Education statistics show that there were 8,390,674 pupils enrolled in 2013.

That is as far as the good news goes. The World Bank policy has been a disaster, as higher institutions of learning have deteriorated in quality, although there was growth in the number of universities.  

Even though universities surged in numbers, the rate of admission remained low because of the high dropout rate at secondary levels for reasons such as lack of school fees and poor academic performance. UPE emphasised quantity as opposed to quality.

“A big problem is the poor performance. You may have 300,000 in Advanced Level but only 17 per cent proceed to university,” said Dr Jonathan Mbambo from the Tanzania Commission for Universities.

In Tanzania, about 55 per cent of Senior Four students fail their examinations. Dr Mbambo attributes this to lack of laboratory facilities, learning aids and a good environment for teaching and learning.

In addition, teachers are not well prepared. In some cases he said those who did not perform well in Senior Six join teacher training colleges.  

IUCEA data shows that the pool of candidates who qualify for higher education is small in all the EAC countries owing to high dropout rates. Kenya, for instance, has the highest rate of primary school enrolment, but 25 per cent of them drop out at secondary level. In Uganda, the secondary school dropout rate is at 19 per cent.

Vision 2050

Mid last month, education experts from the EAC countries met in Entebbe under the auspices of IUCEA and discussed ways of boosting education in the region.

Researchers attending the meeting presented data showing that even the few university graduates available barely meet the employers’ expectations because the current education system is producing “executors” rather than “generators” of ideas.

The study looked at the readiness of the graduates for the labour markets. While 70 per cent of the providers of higher education are fairly satisfied that graduates are ready for the market, with a 49 per cent score, the employers said the readiness of graduates for job markets is very low. 

The governments need to make financial resources available to overhaul higher education institutions with a view to filling the critical human resources requirements for instance, refurbishing infrastructure like workshops and laboratories, retraining of teachers, better pay and accommodation, Internet connections.

The Regional Higher Education Qualifications Gap situational report shows that Burundi will have half million vacant jobs because of lack of talent by 2025. Rwanda will require 484 PhD holders by 2018. Tanzania will require twice the numbers of employed persons with degrees by 2025.  

Unfortunately, most East Africans cannot afford university education. Among the five countries, Uganda’s education is viewed as cheapest.   

In an attempt to reduce the dropout rates, especially for those who have attained some credits at higher institutions, the IUCEA has validated a proposal that will enable students from any country within the EAC to transfer credits attained to a university they find affordable.

In addition, the IUCEA is designing procedures that will enable skilled persons to be assessed and awarded certification for their prior learning even though it was informal. They can then upgrade their education status. This will grow the numbers of persons with higher education.

Tanzania already has an assessment centre for agriculture, mechanics and law. In Uganda, universities are offering admissions for university courses after subjecting applicants to mature entry examinations.

Individual governments are also making attempts to ensure that more students enrol for higher education through the provision of students’ loan schemes. Kenya’s loan scheme has been in existence since 1991 while Uganda launched its scheme in April. This is expected to see an additional 1,000 students join universities.

“In the initial stages, it will require a lot of investment. It is a paradigm shift, moving away from traditional ways of programme development, so we need retraining of lecturers on the way they  prepare their programmes,” said Professor Muhammad Kerre, executive director of Perc-Pace International Ltd.