It’s time to build a knowledge-based society

I have spent the last one week in Sweden. Every time I am in this country I learn something new and ask myself what those lessons would mean for Kenya. The one thing that struck me was the focus of knowledge and how knowledge was driving a lot of the decisions in this country.

First, throughout the week I attended several seminars. At each of these seminars, the attendance and engagement were commendable. Many participants attended and actively engaged in diverse conversations ranging from biodiversity, chemical regulations to micro-plastics.

Secondly, there was impressive attendance of participants from industry. In many conversations of an academic nature taking place in Kenya, there is not as much industry engagement. This is despite the increasing call for industry and academic linkages.

Such linkages are not just to be spoken about, it requires close collaboration, joint activities and mutual influence by each on the work of the other. The common denominator between the two groups can only be knowledge.

Kenya’s Constitution underscores the importance of information and its access. We cannot be able to develop when we do not seek to build knowledge and base our decisions on facts and research.

Many young people have as their inspiration the desire to make money as quickly as possible.

The Aga Khan University carried out a study last year whose findings were shocking and a demonstration of what ails Kenya. Many of the youth interviewed for that study had no problem with money obtained through corruption setting as their target being rich through whichever means possible and in the shortest time possible.

This attitude of the end justifying the means pervades many sectors of society. It is not supportive of hard work.

Many people see going to school not as a way of acquiring knowledge, but more as a process of obtaining papers so as to increase chances of getting a well-paying job. It is exacerbated by the little appreciation of academics.

Some years ago, I had a conversation with a newly elected member of a County Assembly who was a friend of mine. He spent 30 minutes justifying why Members of County Assemblies should be paid much more than university professors. His basis for argument was that as elected representatives they had many more people to serve with their salaries than professors.

Knowledge must become the driving force for our decisions as a society. This requires improving the support to and quality of research being undertaken in the country.
Currently, our institutions of higher learning focus most of their attention on education and very little on research.

A university institution that focuses on education solely is denying society benefits of cutting edge research outputs.

Yes, there exist research departments, but the dedication in generating research funds and conducting top-level research is still very limited. To be clear this must be separated from individual consultancy work done by individual lecturers.

Second, is the focus on research publications. We have to move away from the PowerPoint approach to knowledge, where scholars make PowerPoint presentations without the accompanying background paper that informs society.

The government and industry must also both set aside funds to support research but also commission research from university and research institutions so as to inform policy decisions. For example, the decision to ban plastic bags has been lauded as bold by the government.

Despite this there is very little research that accompanied the decision. This approach to decision making can be criticised for being populist or road side and denies the country the benefit of a more robust analysis of the possible benefits and hindrance to a policy if implemented.

One of the key ingredients of a developed society is the extent to which its critical decisions are knowledge based.

This is not rocket science. It only requires a commitment to generating knowledge, a function of our educational institutions and using that knowledge once generated to drive policy agendas in the country.