Doctors demonstrate outside the Supreme Court in Nairobi last year during a strike to press for better pay. Kenyan doctors are on average taking longer to specialise compared to those in developed nations. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Raise investments in sector workers’ education for better dividend.
Economist David Ndii last week wrote an insightful article on his new platform that stimulated robust discussion online. The gist of the piece was on the superior economic benefits of human capital development compared to infrastructural projects. This theme seemed to resonate well across many professional and academic circles’ commentaries.
At the moment higher learning institutions and universities in particular are grappling with serious cash flow challenges occasioned by ever rising costs of delivery of quality education amidst rising student numbers and dwindling Treasury allocations.
Nowhere else is this more visible than in healthcare and particularly in the local medical schools’ set ups. For a long time, local health workers have been arguing on the socio-economic returns on investments in skilled health workers, especially at the higher levels.
Perhaps a shortcoming of such investments in health workers’ education is the duration it takes. On average no less than 15 years post high school qualification is needed to full specialisation. Maybe the government’s analysis of the capital costs versus both intermediate and long term returns seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that this was a non-priority.
The medical scene is traditionally seen as an attractive choice for academically gifted and exceptional high school students. Looking at performance data over the last 20 years’ KCSE results, it is easy to see where the problem begins. For each year, of the top 100 students KCPE cohort, Kenya losses a significant portion of this pool to foreign universities.
This attrition is further noted for those seeking specialisation abroad after undergraduate training.
An analysis of data from the medical board comparing duration from undergraduate degree to post graduate qualification corroborates this. What comes out is that on average more doctors are taking longer to specialise compared to developed nations.
Is there an economic cost of this efflux, duration of specialisation and quality returns to our health system?
The national and county governments seem to be putting less efforts and resources in budgetary allocation towards training of more doctors and their specialisation. Dr Ndii’s explanations even to a non-economist lays case the argument for better human capital development.
The doctors’ union has put this as one of their main advocacy issues. On a positive note, there seems to be a change of policy by the regional development financing entities. Beginning with the regional as well as the Panafrican one, a sprinkle of initiatives to improve skills of healthcare workers are popping up.
What the East African Development Bank (EADB) and African Development Bank (AfDB) need to do is address the full complexity of acceleration human capital development. Construction of institutes without long term support to students and their teachers falls short of the objective. Longer tenured, better structured academicians’ support, well packaged student loans and health entrepreneurial skills development need to go in tandem.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
