CSO 589: Advanced Training Techniques ~ Course Outline and Reading List, September-December 2016 Semester

COURSE OBJECTIVE

To engage current and prospective trainers and training managers in a joint quest for innovative solutions to the training needs and competency aspirations of different levels of an evolving workforce.

COURSE DESCRIPTION/CONTENT

Key concepts. The nature and patterns of learning in human society. The historical evolution of the learning process. Linkages between Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice (KAP), respectively. Applying the KAP model and its derivatives to learning and training situations. Training typologies and training specifications. Selected theories and models of learning, training and skill-acquisition, Un-packaging, repackaging and fine-tuning identified training techniques. Devising innovative solutions for today’s problems. Linking identified training solutions to real-life challenges, and to selected substantive areas (clusters) covered in the Department’s M.A curriculum.

CLICK: Course Outline and Reading List

Universities Act 2012: Toward Quality Varsity Education in Kenya

An online article posted in Daily Nation on January 21, 2013, and titled  "New Law Wants Varsities to Walk the Quality Talk" (To read, click here), observed that several universities in Kenya have recently been bragging about their quality-based ISO certification. However, a new law to govern the operations and steer the standards of Kenya's public universities -- Universities Act 2012 -- was recently enacted, and was to be implemented under the auspices of the Commission for University Education (CUE), successor to the Commission for Higher Education (CHE). Quality is the key word at CUE, and the newly appointed Head, himself a university don of long standing, could not during an interview say enough about quality as the over-riding criterion of excellence in Kenya's higher education. And yet, I am thinking, quality is a vexed concept, being easier to talk about from a distance than to implement in any comprehensive way, and to assure in the trenches. I am sensing that comments already made in response to the article -- comments such as by TumuTumu, Mheshimiwa and Kenya Yetu -- have hit the nail on the head in substantial measure. 

Quality and standards are the driving concerns in the online article as well. So is walking the talk. However, there is room to make a few other observations, fill a few gaps, as follows:

CUE must go beyond platitudes if it is to make a difference in quality assurance. In the first place, it has to define quality in measurable and, importantly, consequential ways. I don't think KEBS has the standards to make our universities great. It can of course create them in proper consultation with those who operate exactly where the rubber meets the road -- the lecturers and researchers (though, indeed, a disappointing number of lecturers have deeply ingrained habits which exacerbate the rot). 

The main point, however, is that you cannot demand quality on a higher plane if you don't have (or squander in administrative excess and impunity) the financial, material and technical resources required to realize the desired quality. Exceptional or just good lecturers, as human resources, are, up to a point, a component of these resources that must be sourced. They cannot procure, retain, remunerate and motivate themselves -- someone else must do so, and not grudgingly -- in an environment which no one seems to tend with any healthy passion. There's too much inbreeding at our universities. Too much, and in some instances growing, ethnicity -- and even clanism and cronyism.

You cannot have fruit if you don't grow fruit trees, or have procurement power. When all else is said and done, the Achilles' Heel of our higher education is that we have not closed the loop in PhD training, in two ways: (a) We are not training enough based on our own priorities and resources (no sovereignty here) to meet present needs and replace those we lose to attrition of one kind or another; (b) Too many of the few we train we train locally -- and so under-expose intellectually/scholastically and experientially, and so condemn to what may turn out to be, in quality terms, a downward spiral toward a mediocrity we may be too afraid to acknowledge. 

It is a joke for our universities, which are supposed to be universal institutions, to call themselves world class when you have to search and search and not find find any world-class academics from other places willing to join us full-time.

Herdsboy: ILRI's June 2009 Calendar

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), www.ilri.org, has a knack for producing remarkable calendars. I was just looking closely at the June 2009 calendar this morning, which affirms that view, and which prompts a nagging thought.

There is a warm and eye-catching picture of a boy taking a dozen or so cattle to pasture, such as there may be, and which stirs up a wave of nostalgia. He has just left the village, though the sun is already quite up. Both the sun and the village are caught up in a haze of dust whipped up by the cattle's, walking. But I can spy a thatched roof, which is what I was saying -- and which whips up emotions wherever you are if you remember these icons of the village, as we all do, don't we?

This is the Savannah, for sure. But it might be the wetter side of the Sahel, too. The animals look well fed, no matter where this is and no matter what all that dust suggests and no matter that the grass looks sparse.

The boy wears "gum" boots! But boys at that tense border between rapidly eroding innocence and days of raging hormones will wear anything that suits no one else's fancy but theirs. Or perhaps there is a patch of wetland, or a river to contemplate, somewhere ahead, and the boy knows more than you do. Perhaps there are snakes there, and horror stories. Perhaps where he walks there will one day a tarmac road, as there was, out of the blue, for me (who herded barefoot, but not for long).

And he, the herdsboy, wears a cap which is more hip than functional. He has a plastic "gourd" with him. Enough drinking water for the day, which mama made sure he had. Perhaps he already has had a meal, such as there was, and goes forth without any worries about logistics and without his mama fretting either about a son who gets the animals to feed and will not himself be gotten a meal so that he may grow properly into as much a man as his father and more.

The boy looks purposeful, and without regrets; but this is what I really wanted to talk about, very quickly. The ILRI slogan at the bottom of the picture reads: "More livestock means more young people educated." The picture and the slogan are a contradiction, for this is a boy of school-going age, who is not at school. Unless it is the picture of a boy on school holiday, it is, besides being a contradiction, obscene in its implications. And if he is not on school holiday, what one would like to know is: is he waiting for the fees to add up or is he a dropout or a hired hand or an orphan or an eldest son or else?

Kenya's Global Competitiveness Ranking in 2008/09

According to the World Economic Forum's 30th annual Global Competitiveness Report (see complete report, which was released on 8th October, here; see also Wachira Kang'aru excellent account in the Daily Nation of October 9th), Kenya's global competitiveness ranking has improved to 93 in 2008/09, from 99 in 2007/08. This is an improvement, yes, but still way behind Africa's top country -- South Africa, which holds the 45th position.

All in all, twelve variables (the World Economic Forum calls them "Basic indicators") were considered in arriving at the global rankings. Very broadly, we will not get into details here, these were:

I. Institutions
II. Infrastructure
III. Macroeconomic stability
IV. Health and primary education
V. Higher education and training
VI. Goods market efficiency
VII. Labor market efficiency
VIII. Financial market sophistication
IX. Technological readiness
X. Market size
XI. Business sophistication
XII. Innovation (Source: Global Competitiveness Report).

We will say a just little more about some of these variables in a moment.

The Top Ten countries in the world this year are as follows (last year's rankings are shown in brackets, if different from this year's):
1. The United States
2. Switzerland
3. Denmark
4. Sweden
5. Singapore (7)
6. Finland
7. Germany (5)
8. The Netherlands (10)
9. Japan (8)
10. Canada (13).
[Note: The UK, which was ranked 9th last year, dropped out of the Top Ten to the 12th position this year]

Africa's Top Ten this year are (their global ranking in brackets):
1. South Africa (45 this year, 44 last year)
2. Botswana (56 this year, 76 last year )
3. Mauritius (57 this year, 80 last year)
4. Morocco (73 this year, 64 last year)
5. Namibia (80 this year, 89 last year)
6. Egypt (81 this year, 77 last year)
7. The Gambia (87 this year, 102 last year)
8. Libya (91 this year, 88 last year)
9. Kenya (93 this year, 99 last year)
10. Nigeria (94 this year, 95 last year).

What is interesting is the variables or criteria, sketched above, which the World Economic Forum used to arrive at this rank-order in which Kenya has placed an improved 93rd. One of the criteria used, as we have seen, was the innovative capacity evident within the country (Kenya ranked 45th, worldwide, here). This was measured by such indicators as the level of corporate spend on R&D, the existence of "good" research institutions in the country, the extent to which they collaborate with "industry" in scientific ventures, and the quality of education offered within the country (Kenya ranked 33rd in quality of education).

For Kenya, all this is very encouraging -- and three cheers to our educational and research institutions. In saying three cheers, I have the indulgence of cheering my colleagues in academia, and myself. Still, there is much work to do on our part. And there are dangers ahead, for the country is far, far, from closing the loop of quality training for the next generation of scholars. What is more, the political elite continues to treat academics with little material respect, and even arms-length wariness.

Another criterion used was the comparative level of of sophistication displayed by the country's financial markets, as gauged against international standards (including ease of access to loans and to the stock market). Here, Kenya ranked 44 th in the world.

A third criterion was the performance of the public sector, and Kenya fared badly here. It was in fact dragged down by poor performance: it ranked 100th in efficiency, 111th in susceptibility to influence by power-brokers, and 101st in the level of corruption.

Security was also a consideration, and Kenya fared poorly here too. It rankes 126th in terms of levels of crime and violence, 129th in terms of exposure to terrorism, and 118th in the degree to which organized crime pervades the country's socio-economic fabric. In the area of health services, Kenya earned the unhealthy rank of 117.

To conclude: in Africa, the five most improved countries were: Mauritius (a 23-position gain), Botswana (20), The Gambia (15), Namibia (9) and Kenya (6). So, South Africa's lead may be under threat in the years ahead. Mauritius continues to excel, and remains a source of inspiration for all Africans. Botswana's performans is stellar too, though I understand that structural and political capital impediments are beginning to stand in the way -- so that the future there is not as rosy as it continues to seem. The Gambia is a surprise (but probably not to the Gambians), and Namibia continues to mystify in its good, all-round performance. I must find out more about these two. The factors which make Kenya less competitive than it should be are well known, and are not insurmountable. However, there is much work to be done to clear all the cobwebs.