ARUSHA, Tanzania
The East African Legislative
Assembly (EALA) has requested support for the regional university council to
set proper education standards or risk the region being flooded with graduates
who have no skills and unemployment.Martin Ngoga - EALA Speaker
The EALA members raised the
concerns this October 31, 2022 during a session to adopt a report of the
Committee on General Purpose on the oversight activity to assess the progress
made by the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) in harmonization
of education systems in EAC.
MP Pierre-Celestin Rwigema
(Rwanda) said that EAC has some universities (in Kenya and Uganda) and the
region can take advantage of this to set standards and implement the
declaration of Heads of State of 2016- to get quality education for
development.
“All the content in this
declaration was for getting partner states to see how we can get an education
framework based on certain tools and then harmonize them in the region,”
Rwigema said
He said if EAC can find a way
to ease mobility for staff and lecturers and harmonize the school fees, the
region can get the best results taking on the examples of the universities of
Nairobi and Makerere in Kenya and Uganda respectively.
The Committee report observed
the different tuition fees for students charged by higher Institutions in the
EAC Partner States. This poses a challenge in promoting cross border student
mobility in the region.
George Stephen Odongo (Uganda)
said that there is an epidemic of higher institutions of learning that has hit
the region.
He gave an example of the
recent scandals in which a Kenyan politician was taken to court by voters over
alleged fake papers, a concern that also put in the spotlight five candidates
for county governor in the 2022 Kenya General Election accused of having fake
academic credentials.
Odongo said that education and
human capital (as seen in Singapore) is critical to development and thus the
IUCEA should have all necessary support it requires for it to be able to
dispense its function effectively.
Using google search, Odongo
said the majority of top 50 universities in Africa are in the South, North in
the West and a sprinkling of some (University of Makerere and University of
Nairobi) in EAC.
The report shows that the
number of current membership of IUCEA has reached 133 (both public and private
higher education institutions). This number is expected to increase
significantly with the demand for access to higher education in the region
continuing to increase, triggered by the corresponding expansion of basic education
in all countries in East Africa.
However, the Committee report
observed that many East Africans who have completed any form of education are
unemployed. the big skills gap is partly responsible for the high
unemployment. Odongo said EAC has had so many universities questioning the
quality assurance.
“It is not enough to say you
have gone to school. For education to be useful you have to combine knowledge,
skills and tools and without this you have only been to class,” he said.
He recommended that the IUCEA
and partner states need to tighten their belts if EAC is to tell a success
education story rather than a transactional one in accrediting universities
–which he referred to as an embarrassment to EAC.
Other MPs were not happy that
despite the EAC gaps in quality of university education harmonization has not
happened in fees, standards, curriculums and practices.
“We are continuously told that
it is a financial issue but why aren’t we doing anything on financing and
council cannot put this to an end despite different proposals tabled,” asked MP
Susan Nakawuki Nsambu (Uganda).
MP Mnyaa Habib Mohamed
(Tanzania) said that EAC education system is a colonial one thus there is need
to have a single curriculum which creates skills development for African
markets.
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