By Charles Onyango Obbo
The other week, The Sunday Times (London) had a University pullout that gave a whole new meaning to the idea of “relevant education”. And, by extension, how far we have to go to make education meaningful again. You would not have guessed it, but one of the hottest new university courses is a degree in “beer distribution”. Not surprising in a world where, a few years ago, a university started offering a degree course in David Beckham Studies, to fathom the on-field and off-field business success of the England superstar footballer. My first encounter with these thoroughly modern courses was in The Independent. It reported that you could get an exotic degree in belly dancing, if you are so inclined. Then, if you want to be an investigative journalist or private detective, there are many options for a degree in crime investigation.
The golfing community will be happy to learn that their game is taken very seriously. Lincoln University offers a Bachelor of Sciences course in golf studies.
Western societies have been trying to puzzle out why, after all their development, decades of democracy, unemployment benefits, comprehensive health insurance, and all that, their people are still miserable. So, unsurprisingly, there are now degree courses in happiness.
Three months ago, I went around the best universities in Nairobi teaching new information technology courses. The most up to date was about four years behind. If I lived in the UK or USA, I would have the option to study everything from mobile computing and social networking (specialising in Facebook), to Internet games. And, of course, all those good people who are into event planning can now go to college and get a degree in it.
Oh yes, these days you can also get a degree in the practices of display (window-dressing). Our colleges offer courses in music dance and drama, but that is so yesterday. Today, the smart fellows get degrees in music and entertainment management.
Meanwhile, as our governments keep threatening dealers and dispensers of traditional medicine (some are conmen and crooked women), Lincoln University is offering degrees in herbal medicine. So, if our universities were to address our day-to-day problems, what new courses might they introduce?
To begin with the more high-minded ones, it is a shame that none of the universities in our region has a course in the East Africa Community. As a result, there are no chairs of East African Studies, or EAC Fellowships.
YOU WOULD THINK THAT THE CO-ompanies that stand to gain most from a working East African common market would already have proposed something along those lines. But no, the lack of vision in our part of the world is not limited to politicians.
East Africa also needs a course on Lake Victoria, at a water studies university based either in Mwanza, Entebbe, or Kisumu. Its components could include courses on forest and water sources that feed Lake Victoria (which would include Mau Forest); the rivers that flow from the Victoria (with a Masters on the political economy of River Nile); and of greater interest to ordinary people, a special diploma on the Nile Perch and Tilapia.
I think a course on ethnic conflict, or a wider category of tribalism, is long overdue. Honours students in ethnic conflict would have helped everyone better anticipate the post-election violence in Kenya last year.
The one course I would definitely start if I woke up one morning and found that God, for some mysterious reason, had left $10m (Sh770m) in the boot of my car, would be on corruption. Course elements would be how to identify managers, politicians, and leaders who are likely to be corrupt. Then, naturally, the fine art of detecting corruption. And, to cap it, the fine art of combating corruption.
We need several lifestyle courses. Recently I went to pick up some fashionable young people who had gone to have their hair braided at Kenyatta Market, I roamed the place a bit. It is a maze, but fascinating. I had never imagined that hair-braiding is such a huge industry. So right there, I could see a course in braiding.
Since we are in Africa, courses in potholes are overdue. And, after reading Paul Collier’s book, War, Guns, Votes (a problematic book as a review in Nation on Friday will show), I was fascinated by its insight into rigging in Cape Verde and Nigeria. A course in election theft is another must for our universities.//The Nation
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