Kenya requires to produce 1,000 PhDs annually to bridge the gap of senior academics. file photo | nmg
What you need to know:
In the absence of research funding, lecturers have opted for survival tactics, including part-time teaching and all manner of moonlighting.
Kenya has a severe shortage of PhD-level researchers, standing at 40 per cent of the teaching staff in universities.
The country needs to produce 1,000 PhDs per year to close the gap yet does only 230 per year.
There is no question that Kenyan university education is in dire straits. According to the Commission for University Education (CUE), one of the drawbacks is scarce research funding.
In the absence of research funding, lecturers have opted for survival tactics, including part-time teaching and all manner of moonlighting.
Compared to peers, Kenya fares dismally in post-graduate education. According to a 2016 CUE report, completion rates at the postgraduate level are low, and the quality of research supervision wanting.
Kenya has a severe shortage of PhD-level researchers, standing at 40 per cent of the teaching staff in universities. The country needs to produce 1,000 PhDs per year to close the gap yet does only 230 per year.
As a consequence of the underwhelming levels of academic research, Kenya is lagging other countries in terms of the quality of learning and teaching with negative implications for the job market.
In the absence of funding, Kenyan universities are using academic research output merely as promotion criteria for academic staff. Consequently, the practice where a number of lecturers publish in low-quality predatory journals has taken root.
Globally, universities source their research funding mainly from the government and industry. As such, both government and industry should bear blame for poor research funding. However, the government bears more responsibility.
Although the National Research Foundation was recently established, it is still early days to assess its potential to alleviate the situation. How does Kenya compare with other countries?
Recent statistics indicate that China increased its research output from three per cent in 2001 to 18.6 per cent in 2018, becoming the largest producer of academic research articles followed by the USA.
Sweden and Switzerland have the most highly cited publications, followed by the US, the EU, and then China. It is no wonder that China, the EU, and the US had the most patent applications in 2017 based on data from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo).
These countries retain global leadership in research because they spend.
According to the World Bank, Kenya allocates 0.79 per cent of GDP to research and development.
The figure includes funding to universities and specialised research institutions. In comparison, China, the US, and the EU spend 2.07 per cent, 2.79 per cent and 2.05 per cent of GDP on research respectively. The global average is 2.23 per cent.
The disregard for academic research is due to a variety of reasons. First, people in Kenya, especially the management in the mainstream public and corporate sector have a negative attitude towards academic research.
The average Kenyan sneers at “academic theories” preferring, instead “practical solutions,” forgetting that there is nothing more practical than a good theory.
We could excuse the rest for this, but not the elite.
First, at the macro-level, academic research feeds research and development in wider society from policy circles to productive industries and on to the corporate sector.
Secondly, academic research informs teaching at all levels of the education system but, crucially, at the university level. Without continuing investment in research, the entire education system soon begins to decay, with the impact reflected in the quality of graduates.
Third, academic research also adds to the existing stock of knowledge that benefits not only Kenyans but humanity in general.
Another problem regarding academic research is that the Government of Kenya has established parallel public research institutions. But, there is no framework for collaboration.
In economics, for example, the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (Kippra) should draw more from university research to avoid duplication that results in wastage of public funds.
What is the way forward? A well-designed research should be commissioned to analyse the problem and the government and stakeholders should commit to implementing the findings.
John Karuitha, PhD candidate at business school, University of the Witwatersrand; Bob Wekesa, is a senior lecturer in journalism and media studies at same institution.
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