Heritage

The trouble with Kenyan MBA and PhD training

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Kenyan tertiary institutions score dismally low on rankings of research output. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Kenya stands as the beacon of higher education throughout East and Central Africa. We host vibrant public and private universities with high attendance rates among our general population.

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics estimates that more than 238,000 university students are enrolled in Kenyan institutions. Our universities also attract droves of learners from across the continent who desire more credible, reliable, and interactive curriculum.

However, how do the structure of our master’s and doctoral programmes match with the United Kingdom and the United States? Kenyan MBAs usually require remedial survey courses in business subjects if a student does not hold previous undergraduate classes in the same disciplines. American universities generally do not require such pre-MBA remedial learning.

Also, American and British MBA classes are not typically textbook-based or notes-based like often here in Kenya, but rather article-based. The foreign MBA programmes though incorporate copious amounts of group work. American and British institutions force group learning even though research proves such styles difficult and counterproductive to introverts. Also, the pre-eminent source of innovative creative ideas originates from alone time while group sessions extinguish creativity.

Additionally, in the American model, which holds the highest ranked MBA programmes in the world, there exists no research component in professional graduate programmes. Students are expected to learn practical applications to academic theory, not generate new research-based academic theory, on their way to becoming titans of industry and policy.

Furthermore, both American and British graduate degrees tend to be shorter with fewer required classes as compared to Kenyan master’s.

But does more busywork necessarily lead to better graduates? Alternatively, should we use more impactful purposeful content in subject areas instead of mixing together every subject under the sun that in some way relates? A human resources graduate student being forced to study corporate finance is akin to making someone learn to climb a tree before they are allowed to learn to swim.

Then, once a graduate student in Kenya completes an MBA, they often desire to go on for advanced studies at the doctoral level. Kenya uses a mix of British and American PhD models that proves disadvantageous to Kenyan learners.

In the British model, a student moves from an undergraduate bachelor’s degree to a graduate-level master’s degree and then on to a PhD. In the British model, the doctorate-level typically does not include subject matter courses. The doctorate revolves around a unique, original, substantial, and rigourous piece of research. A student is presumed to be largely knowledgeable in the subject matter due to their previous master’s degree in the area. As a result, British PhDs tend to be shorter, around three years on average, and do not include classes or a comprehensive subject exam. South Africa and many other commonwealth nations follow this model. It proves successful with highly ranked research output at commonwealth tertiary institutions.

The American model provides a contrast. Usually, a talented learner proceeds from their undergraduate bachelor’s degree directly into a PhD programme. There is no need for a separate standalone master’s degree in the American path to doctoral qualifications. Then, in the PhD, a student usually undergoes two years of subject coursework and then takes a mammoth all-encompassing comprehensive examination covering the entire discipline. If the learner passes the “comps” exam, then they are considered ABD (all but dissertation) and can often qualify for some lecturing positions while they then take another two to four years to write their research dissertation. The American model also proves highly successful with the highest proportion of highly ranked universities in terms of research output.

In comparison, most Kenyan universities combine the difficult aspects of the British model with the tough parts of the American model. In Kenya, a learner is generally required to do a master’s degree as well as years of coursework within a PhD. So, a Kenyan student spending six, seven, or more years in graduate-level education in order to attain both a master’s and a coursework plus dissertation doctorate often is the norm.

Despite all the time Kenyan learners spend in class, Kenyan tertiary institutions score dismally low on rankings of research output. Many students get exhausted and worn-out trying to trudge through our processes.

We need a well-trained labour force. We need to remove senseless duplication and the compounded negative societal effects from collective time wastage, consumer spending reduction, and low family time on the general population.

What bureaucratic educational structures might we discard in order to streamline learning to yield better results? American legal and medical education contains myriads or extra bureaucratic learning unlike the UK or Kenya.

But how can Kenya remove bureaucratic box-ticking hurdles from our business education too? Surely, we can reduce the number of times a student must take the exact same subject at bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels. Then we can focus on what really matters: cutting-edge research and powerfully informed business leaders that transform our counties and the nation as a whole.