Elgeyo Senator Kipchumba Murkomen’s proposed bill to amend Section 22 of the Elections Act 2011 to remove the requirement of an academic degree for those seeking to run for MPs and MCAs must fall.
It’s a retrogressive act of irresponsibility for educated people to champion illiteracy in politics to maximise their control of it.
In the proposed amendment, Murkomen wants every Tom, Dick and Harry with pretended reading and writing skills in English or Swahili allowed to vie. It was always like that until the 2011 amendment that cured the malady where politics was the only profession in Kenya that required no formal education. Murkomen’s Bill is thus retarding and selfish.
It seeks to have as many nincompoops as possible in politics for easier manipulation by the political elite.
But more malignant is the message to the public that education doesn’t matter. It’s the same warped mindset that discourages schooling because dropouts have made riches through crooked means, while their schooled agemates are marginally poor.
The Murkomen amendment was provoked by the Independent Boundaries and Electoral Commission insistence that the degree requirement will be mandatory for all aspirants in the 2022 General Election. Since enactment in 2011, the application of the law has been postponed twice to allow aspirants comply by acquiring the credentials. It’s time for it to apply without further delay.
There’s no denying that education improves societal well-being. Kenya has over the years heavily invested in inclusive and quality education. Household surveys reveal the seriousness with which Kenyans value education is evidenced by households’ heavy spending on education; and how communities unquestioningly build school infrastructure.
It’s with certainty that public schools are community built and maintained installations, only supplemented by government.
Indeed, there is pervasive belief that if you want to be “something in life”, then education is the gateway. Families would rather be impoverished than fail to send their offspring to school. That value for education is being demobilised and demolished by the bill.
To emphasise national attachment to education as a social and economic mobility enabler, out of a population of 47 million, Kenya has over 17 million children and youth in school and in tertiary institutions. About 600,000 are students in public universities. Hence, about 8.3 per cent of Kenya’s population is pursuing education. Despite the economic glut and huge deficits, the 2021-22 budget reserves the highest allocation to education at Sh454.428 billion. All these is rubbished by the Murkomen bill.
Such investment by a country cannot be so that educational qualifications mean nothing in any sphere of life, least of all in politics. If education wasn’t worth the investment and political leadership can be exempt, then such a society would be on a regressive trajectory than a progressive one. And there are such signs that Kenya’s political development is stymied and has stagnating due the illiteracy of political leaders that is imbued with mediocrity of ideas.
There may be a case to the myth that exemplary leaders of the past excelled without formal schooling. The incorrect reasoning is that leadership qualities are innate and not learnt. Sociologists will tell you that everything we know comes through varied forms of socialisation; there is nothing about inborn knowledge.
True, there were exceptional traditional leaders who transited from provincial thinking but that was then, under a different environment and context. Their reign was buried in the 20th Century. They didn’t have to deal with internet and fast-moving technical information.
For avoidance of doubt, employment and career progression are defined by knowledge and skills acquired through an education. It can’t, therefore, be that politicians should be exempt from education requirements that society puts premium to as a trigger of development.
Kenya aims to turn into an industry-driven middle-income country under Vision 2030. To get there, the proportion of the population with tertiary education should be about 50 per cent. We cannot set and achieve that target with an intellectually retarded political leadership that is out of sink ideas; and can’t comprehend and digest phenomena thus hasn’t capacity to inspire and guide the public. Unless, of course, the prescription by Murkomen is that idols, mentors and models for the young today need not have an education.
Talking heads on TV argue that degree demands for political leaders curtails their political rights. A right isn’t absolute and it isn’t exercised in a vacuum. It is regimented by corresponding responsibilities. It’s regulated. There are requirements and guidelines for enjoying a political right at given levels – must be of a certain age to participate in elective politics, join a political party, have specified “educational” qualifications as a candidate, etc.
The basic qualification for entry into elective politics is one must be able to read and write either in Kiswahili or English. It is the first recognition of formal education as a key plunk in leadership. And like other professions, career progression demands further qualifications. Those who’ve the basics can choose to remain members of political parties and voters. But to aspire to lead, one must offer much more than basic literacy. This should help retire the politics of kuchongoana.
Others argue that since only one per cent of Kenyans have degrees, requiring MCAs and MPs to have degrees is discrimination of the majority. That political leadership will become a preserve of a minute political elite. Well, classical ancient Greek democracy provided that every citizen participates in government, but leadership was selective, led by their best. Today, our best is adjudged against their level of education. We must hence live with the times, and not yearn for primordial instinctual leadership.
We live in the 21st Century. Most leadership interactions are carried out in learnt foreign languages not acquired mother tongues. You must achieve a certain level of education to make sense of the world of internet where most transactions — including debate in county assemblies and Parliament — are now made. A nincompoop who neither has ability to interpret information nor understand use of modern technical gadgets is a burden to our political development.
I often wonder why we require that in public service and private sectors, all technocrats must have higher education qualifications. It is highly technical documents prepared by this cadre that MCAs and MPs are asked to unscramble and make sense of. No wonder we have noisemakers for MCAs.
Specifically, if we must require that members of the county executive and their technical backups have degrees, shouldn’t it balance out that MCAs, too, have the same level of education to operate meaningfully, effectively and efficiently in their oversight role?
Could our devolution undoing at the county assemblies, where gangs of extortionists have sprouted, be rooted in the minimal, if at all, fair educational exposure?
