Muhammad Ali: January 17, 1942 - June 4, 2016

He was invincible,
In our hearts. Even
At those rare moments 
When he seemed truly vinced.

Having said all that
Needed to be said,
In that 
Sure-fire style.

He was, already, 
In another place,
Doing the rope-a-dope,
When illness threw its punch.

He cheated silence.

He was
As great
As we
Believed.








VIDEO : Muhammad Ali's Highlights VIEW: Muhammad Ali's Ten Greatest Fights

Training in Kenya: Current and Future Roles of MTTAT ~ Discussion Paper

I. TRAINING IN KENYA: AN OVERVIEW

I.1. Current Policy

At the national level, policy is generically to be understood as a statement of basic principles, broadly-defined goals and/or overall strategies formulated by the state to govern an important segment of national life. A given set of policy statements may change or be modified, abruptly or gradually over time, ahead of the actions to which they call attention or, often enough, after the fact. Sometimes only aspects of a policy change. Sometimes there is no written policy as such -- merely the leanings and gesticulations, so to speak, of the key actors.

Kenya's training policy has so far not been consolidated into any single document. Consequently, some sort of gleaning must be undertaken if a synthesis is to be attempted. Moreover, though MTTAT is "the" training Ministry, not all published policy statements are issued by it. Indeed, many predate its creation in March 1988.

According to the Kamunge report (1988: 35), Kenya's training policy emphasizes the following objectives:

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Skill Acquisition in the Informal Sector: Target Group Identification and Project Feasibility Survey

1. INTRODUCTION

Background:

In the last few years, there has been growing realization in Kenya that if technical training is a prerequisite for self-employment, then the available formal sector training opportunities are too limited vis-a-vis the number of people who require technical training, and rather unfocused in terms of what is required for effective involvement in the informal sector (Yambo, 1991: 3). This has prompted the view that the time has come  to initiate a concerted effort to enable the informal sector to develop the capability to satisfy its own training needs. This view was reinforced by the rediscovery of the fact that informal sector apprenticeship has indeed been in existence -- albeit a low-key existence -- around the country for a considerable length of time already (King, 1977; Williams, 1980; Chepkonga, 1989).

A policy paper issued in 1990 by the Kenyan government acknowledged, probably for the first time, that the country's informal sector represented not only "a large untapped potential" for apprentice training, but also the prospect for "Superior training to apprentices" (Ministry of Planning and National Development, 1990: 41). This point of view was echoed in a recent evaluation of the Taita-Taveta Youth Polytechnic Programme (DANIDA, 1990: 98). However, the obvious evolution of thinking about the place of informal sector apprenticeship in human resource development has had a less than telling effect on the orientation of projects geared to informal sector training, most of which continue to presuppose a large dose of direct formal or "non-formal" sector intervention (Herschbach, 1989: 9-13; King, 1989: 27-35; Goodale, 1989: 58-66; McLaughlin, 1990: 160-174). In other words, practice is yet to catch up with "theory".

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ARCHIVE: A Review of Colin Leys' Underdevelopment in Kenya

Colin Leys' book, Underdevelopment in Kenya: The Political Economy of Neo-colonialism, caused quite a conversational stir when it was published just over forty years ago. Here is a review of it that I wrote in 1976, and which remains a manuscript:

The central purpose of this study is to examine the "significance of independence for the mass of (Kenyan) people." Before doing so, however, it is imperative, so the author argues, to "try to disengage oneself" from the biases of existing literature. It is imperative for three reasons:

First, it is impossible to understand the relationship between the 'private sector' and the pattern of Kenya's post-independence development in purely Kenyan terms. Second, a focus on the 'private sector' or the 'economy' as something distinct from the 'political system' is seen as an artificiality and an obstacle to clear understanding of "the reality." The suggestion here is that existing literature has committed this 'sin'. Third, in order to answer the basic questions about the significance of independence, one must reject the false 'value-freedom' of existing literature and make a choice as to what interests and political practice one's framework of inquiry "should try to embody" or serve. Leys' conscious choice, or 'bias', is what we may call the "underdevelopment" or "dependency" model which in his view represents "an immense advance , politically and intellectually, over conventional development theory, in spite of some very serious defects of its own" (p. xiii), The theoretical context of the book is indicated in chapter I. 

Leys argues that the theory of underdevelopment originated in the writing of Marx and Lenin (one supposes that 'Marx' includes Engels) -- though their "prime concern" was with Europe and European Russia. A "major theoretical development has been required," he adds, since the first socialist revolution did not... 

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Popularizing Traditional African Foods for Industrial Development: Constraints and Opportunities

This paper attempts to identify, in a fairly general and, to some extent, impressionistic way the constraints and opportunities that would attend upon any endeavour to popularize or repopularize traditional African foods as one way of furthering industrial development in Kenya. Since popularizing implies increasing demand, the underlying principle in this paper is that before any large-scale effort to popularize, supply must be assured.

It is argued here that while actual shortages may turn out to be less severe than officially projected for 1989, shortages are nevertheless likely to be substantial; necessitating a considerable amount of food importation unless a herculean counter-measures are in the meantime taken. This likely shortfall in the supply of most basic foodstuffs complicates in many ways any envisaged campaign to expand the existing demand for traditional foods in the country. It is also likely to undermine any move to seize the industrial opportunities such a campaign may offer.

A number of possible complications and opportunities are discussed. Also discussed are normative, structural and aesthetic constraints likely to undercut the efforts to make particular dishes, or traditional dishes in general, more "popular" than they now are.  


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HERE TOO: A Sampling of African Foods


NOTE: 

1.This paper was originally presented at The First Kenya National Academy of Sciences (KNAS) Annual Symposium, held at Sirikwa Hotel, Eldoret, Kenya, which was held from September 17 to 22, 1984.

2. I have finally scanned and uploaded the paper to my blog on an "as is" basis, for whatever that is worth, in order to facilitate a wider readership without further delay. I have in that way avoided to the end, as I had done for some time already, the temptation to undertake minor or full-fledged editorial interventions in this pre-digital text, great as the temptation has on occasion been. It is my hope that the reader will find the essential content worth the while, despite the chaff.

Youth Polytechnics and HIT: What Future for Self-Employment in Kenya?

The research work that informs this paper was done in late 1980s and early 1990s. The paper speaks essentially to the policy issues and employment context of that period, primarily in Kenya but to some extent elsewhere in Africa as well. Be that as it may, much that I say in this paper remains of considerable relevance to today's conversations about skill acquisition, employment creation and self-employment.

I have so far not sought to publish the contents of this paper in any journal. So it has remained a manuscript. Nevertheless, I have lately thought that it would be useful to share its contents with a wider readership than the occasional allusions or references to parts of it in my Work and Industry class. So I offer it here:


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That's My Firebird

Look! That's my silver Firebird, at my Sherman Hall parking lot, in Champaign. You've got to look really hard to find it, in this "Christmas Card City" -- as the News-Gazette editors so aptly captioned the picture. I've always treasured it.

This is back to the future stuff; a blast from the past -- from the last millennium, even. You can see that there's practically no one in the sidewalks this Friday morning, and little evidence of vehicular traffic. There were no selfies then. No email. No Twitter. No Google search. The millennials were not yet born. I think they were waiting for my return to Kenya.

At this time, in early 1978, Obama hadn't even come to Illinois, let alone Kenya. Little Michelle, where was she, there in Chicago, that Windy City, that particular morning?

It was a really cold morning, brrrrr! But I was in my room, and I remember it with as much warmth as my room provided me. 

You see, somewhere there inside Sherman Hall that morning was a Kenyan thinking about school work, and perhaps about home. I had been happily back to Kenya just months earlier, in the summer of 1977.

The future was all ahead of me here. It's been a magical thing to come upon it in steps, along the winding way. But much of it is, for me, still is. You'll see.

CLICK: Images of Firebird

READ MORE: About Pontiac Firebird

LISTEN: Igor Stravinsky's Ballet Score, The Firebird,  conducted by Valery Gergiev:

Windy Light

All the nights we'll ever have
Were born to different mothers.
Free of all the tabu
Any one has known of.

Lone. Herdsman. Upon a hill.
Zooms 
By the remaining day,
Our eyes blurred with earth colors.

Has such fine zebu
As only he has
Songs and numbers for,
Such as you'll never

Hear,
I reckon.
In Payom.

He sees all through us.
By reason of which
We see him. Just. As
We think that we do.

Who will sing Paquita,
Alone, when we're all out
Of this picture,
At last?

Free, alas, at last.

Amidst all this doubt,
Who will tell mama
What we've been through,
Poking the secrets of laughter?

The unbearable truth of sadness.

Who'll send, again,
All the lyrics
We couldn't remember
Only yesterday.

Songs
That perished with the mailman,
That we would like to sing, right
Now?

In the marketplace
All the messages are gone
Crazy
Fuzzy,
No one knows what's happening.

To all the things in our hands.

All the lights
Are blinking.
Green amber and red.
And over and over.

In billowing threads.
In windy light, then!
Alone.

In
A falsified
Solitude comes,
Anew,
The messenger.