[kictanet] Education and Our Future

[bitange at jambo.co.ke]

Esther,
Career choice is much more complex than we all think. When I was in grades school, I wanted to be a teacher. Reason. Teachers were the only people who wore shoes in our village. When I broke my arm and taken to hospital, I saw a doctor for the first time and I loved what they did. They were more cleaner in their white overcoats. And so I wanted to be a doctor.

Later in life I came to Nairobi and visited an uncle who was a chief accountant. I wanted to an accountant too because my uncle seemed to be doing nothing but sitting and ordering people around.

I went to US for college. Here I was made to study courses that had nothing to do with my dreams. Courses like critical thinking, philosophy, psychology, sociology, history of art, music  etc.  These were required before you chose your career of choice. I fell in love with history of art studying architectural designs from such eras as Gothic, Baroque etc. I never pursued either history of Art or architecture because my friends stopped me.  Asking me questions like where will you work? 

I should have done what I wanted. To date I get mesmerised when I see any beautiful architectural designs. I had discovered my talent but listened to short sighted friends. They perhaps did not know just like I was confused. I would have been the best architect.

The import of my story is that our institutions rush our students far too fast to decide their lifelong careers.  Today we have engineers and doctors working as bank clerks. This has led to hyper inflation of educational qualification. Where work that requires high school level it is done by graduates. Where we needed graduates we have doctoral candidates. Where will this inflation stop?

Let us reform our educational system.


Ndemo.



Sent from my BlackBerry®

-----Original Message-----
From: "Esther Muchiri" <emuchiri at andestbites.com>
Sender: "kictanet" <kictanet-bounces+bitange=jambo.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke>Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 21:42:42 
To: <bitange at jambo.co.ke>
Cc: 'KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions'<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Education and Our Future

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