Where do we go from here?

Youth Unemployment by MUSYOKA NGUI

Where do we go from here?

This is a graduating season. Many tertiary institutions are churning out graduates in their thousands. The job market has witnessed unprecedented flooding of young job seekers. The formal employers have time and again complained that the trainees are half baked.  Today we examine the dilemma of Kenyan youth. Do they have a future?

While I was growing up, I was fascinated by the immense hopes and dreams of childhood. In my class, kids always dreamed of being great. The greatness was defined by white colour careers such as being a doctor, engineer, lawyer or a banker.

The teachers never disclosed to the pupils how hard it is to succeed in Kenya. Was it a too harsh truth to dash the dreams of the kids? A few years later I am hit by the very same reality my teachers hid from me. That it is not a question of whether you have education in Kenya. It is a matter of where you can fit. There are no vacancies, at least for the ordinary folk.

I take issue with the rote learning called the 8-4-4 system. It is too much theoretical and idealistic. It pays little attention to practical work. It is exam oriented and produces cramming machines from the students. The result is graduates who cannot connect theory with practice. There is a yawning disconnect between the class and the field.

Our lecturers complain that we have what I will call high school syndrome. We do not go beyond the dictated notes and handouts. We don’t research. We are not excited nor are we curious. Yes we have sharp memories. We duplicate what we are taught and nothing more.

Sometimes we feel we are being insulted. Because we are not creative. We are not innovative. We do not want to work. We do not want to think. And so the joy of being granted the power to read and do all that appertains to your degree as a newly graduate is such a painful celebration. Where do you go from the campus? You will soon realize that there are no jobs.

When the reality dawns the youth feel frustrated. They do not understand why they cannot get a job yet they are qualified. They become desperate for any job they will land. Some get into social ills. The ranks of crime swell with graduates who risk every day to earn a living albeit the wrong way.

The disenfranchised youths become apathetic. They don’t care about anything. They start hating the system. They blame the government, their parents, schools or even God for their troubles. When depressed they seek refuge in drug abuse to drown their worries and sorrows. Others get into the world’s oldest profession, prostitution. If their brains do not sell, they sell their bodies.

But one irony that strikes me is why the youth are so disadvantaged despite their immense power? They constitute 70 per cent of the Kenyan population. This is enough majority to bring any form of social, economic and political change.

In the last general election some participated in the polling process and were elected while millions voted. However, there is no tangible change of policy to reflect a vibrant, dynamic, productive and energetic constituency that is the youth.

Like other Kenyans, the youth are embroiled in corruption. Many employment opportunities are taken up by the wealthy to the chagrin of the poor. It is a matter of having a tall uncle to push you through the boardroom interview. Hard work and academic excellence comes distance if they ever get a chance to be considered. This discourages those who do not have godfathers yet they have something to offer.

The youths are narrow -minded. They think only about being employed and not employing someone.  They are not enterprising enough. The school teaches them to be bosses and to work behind a table. As a result, they have allergy for blue colour jobs however promising. They do not want to work in the farm or be juakali artisans. They despise these careers as dirty and regard them as a reserve for the elderly and uneducated.

Being idle exposes these people to be guns for hire. They can be bribed to go and commit crimes and peddle drugs. That is what being a beggar teaches people to be: without a choice. They can be abused. During the Post-Election Violence the youth bore the infamous reputation of being the ones who fought the war, said the allegations.  It was heartbreaking. The people who should be custodians of life turned out to be the threat to the very life. In traditional African societies, it is the youth who guarded the community from attacks but the modern ones attack from within.

These youths have not exploited the opportunities they have fully. They are an ignorant lot. For example, they have been reluctant to apply for the government subsidized loans like the Youth Enterprise Fund and the Uwezo Fund. Do they want to be spoon fed? They have no initiative. They are like wheelbarrows. They must be pushed to move.

Of all the handicaps I have hopelessly observed nothing beats the young people more than their poor reading culture. A society that does not read is a dead one. They only read for exams. They do not read for knowledge. They read for CATs and assignments. They think reading is old fashioned. They want fast and cool fun. They are OK with watching TV. They are satisfied with being armchair busy bodies analyzing issues they are not authority in. They just are at home watching movies and premier league rather than reading a business magazine that could transform their lives. Of course having fun is good but there is no better joy than that of reading.  Intimate book lovers know the secrets of the pages and the permanence of the written word.

In Kenya, there is a sad joke which goes like if you want to hide something from a Kenyan, put it in a book. Bookshops were allegedly spared by the looters of Post Election Violence since they were “useless”.

But reading has the power of expanding one’s intelligence and perspective in ways that TV cannot.  Writing and storytelling is the hallmark of human civilization. Any developed society must value its books and treasures them. A youth who does not read is a failure in life. Perhaps that is why they cannot even get a job because their grammar is wanting and their functional literacy is way below their academic level. Good riddance if they cannot put effort to borrow ideas from books yet they can sit on the sofa hours on end watching motion pictures. Like they own a TV network! Poor lazybones.

If the young people want to emancipate themselves they should stop blaming others for their woes. They should think outside the box. There are many avenues in the world. They can go international especially in this era of digital revolution. New careers are emerging and should be embraced. These include research, part time jobs as well as unconventional professions such as comedy, acting, modelling and blogging.

It never hurt anyone to swallow their pride and accept a low cadre job. Such humility to start at a low rung of the ladder and climb up lacks in today’s youth. Unless you have a family business to be a de facto boss, you will have to be patient.

The writer is a 3^rd year student of Bachelors of Arts Degree in Communication and Media at Chuka University. He blogs at musyokangui.blogspot.com

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