Shame on you! Magoha tells leaders with fake certificates
Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha has lashed out at a section of leaders struggling to prove the authenticity of their university degrees.
According to Prof Magoha, it is shameful that some of the people who want to be leaders are fighting so hard to prove that they have degrees. “From a professional point of view, I, Magoha, will not fight to say I am what I am not …and I am not targeting anyone… so it is very shameful that people who want to be our leaders, and there are many of them, are fighting to prove that,” Magoha said.
He made the remarks yesterday as he inspected the Competency-Based Curriculum classroom at Pangani Girls in Nairobi.
“If you were to ask me who were my classmates, I will give you a battery of them from all over the world and most of them have retired. I would want to urge the people, the politicians, in particular, to stop destroying our universities,” added the CS.
Right sized
Magoha affirmed that the country’s universities need to be right-sized and regimented, even as he took pride in the reforms he made at University of Nairobi (UoN) when he was the Vice-Chancellor.
“…like the UoN, if you want transcripts of someone who studied there in 1975, you just touch a button and you will get it, that is how it should be,” he added.
He called upon politicians to stop confusing children saying they should be encouraged to follow the right procedure in any education system.
“I would want us to stop confusing the children because the casualties of what we are doing are the children who are very genuine,” he added maintaining that CBC is ‘not going anywhere.
The CS accused some education officials of laxity in discharging their duties on grounds that elections are coming up soon and a new government will be in place.
“For us, professionals who are charged with ensuring that responsibility, it is like a word from the Bible and that is why I want to encourage field officers, some of whom unfortunately have moved on because they think this government is finished… we still have at least two months until we swear in the next government,” said Magoha.
Though a new government will come into place soon, he said, there should be no vacuum and the plight of children should always be looked into at all times.
“Would you like these children to stay in a vacuum at that time? Mine is to say that we work for the children irrespective of the political party or whoever has been promised a job or anything,” said Magoha.
“For me, I have already paid rent for my clinic and therefore, I do not expect to be handed any other job… mine is to wish everyone well and charge us to continue working as we should be working,” he added.
Meanwhile, more than 90 per cent of 2021 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam candidates who qualified to join university have applied for degree courses.
Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (Kuccps) Chief Executive Mercy Wahome made the remarks as she announced that today is the final chance for the qualifiers to make their selection. Kuccps had given the students this week the third and final chance for them to apply for courses they would want to pursue in universities.
“We are pleased with the degree applications as 90 per cent of the eligible candidates have already applied. We encourage the few who have not yet applied to do so by tomorrow (today) so as not to miss government sponsorship,” said Wahome, in a statement.
According to Dr Wahome, out of the 144,516 Kenyan citizens who obtained mean grades of C+ and above, 128,762 had submitted applications to the Kuccps by yesterday.
With more than 385,000 and over 15,000 vacancies available in the TVET institutions and primary teacher training colleges respectively, she also urged the eligible to hurry and submit applications saying there are enough vacancies to accommodate all.
Eligible candidates
According to Kuccps, the TVET and TTC applications target eligible candidates from the 2021 KCSE class and those of the years 2000 to 2020.
“We encourage the Form Four leavers to apply for diploma, certificate and artisan courses before the application system closes so as not to miss an opportunity for government sponsorship,” she added.
KUCCPS opened its portal on June 14 for the third and final revision of choices for placement of government-sponsored students to universities and public TVET and Teacher Training Colleges.
