Is liberal arts curriculum the change local universities need?

A recent investigation by the Nation found that many parents have moved their children to schools that offer international curricular to avoid the teething problems of the Competence Based Curriculum (CBC).

The discovery is indicative that the implementation of the new system does not meet the needs of some stakeholders.

In common parlance, the decision to overhaul the old 8-4-4 system was on grounds that it laid emphasis on grades while disregarding learners’ passions and opportunity to explore.

There’s now a new argument that, even as the struggle to fix CBC continues, its flexibility should spill over to the institutions of higher learning as well.

The argument is that, just like life itself, education is not meant to be static. Perhaps it’s time to embrace new curriculums such as liberal arts in colleges and universities as western countries have done.

We had a chat with a number of beneficiaries of the foreign system to shed some light on the liberal arts system.

I am a Human Resource (HR) business partner at Kasha Global, a company that provides access to health services, products and information to women in emerging markets, and I am tasked with holistically evaluating potential employees for the company.

The Kenyan education system is fair, and there is a need for improvement. I believe it’s high time we fix the flaws in our higher education system.

Most tutors have attained the age of 60 and are using the 20th century syllabus to prepare students for the 21st century.

Bearing this in mind, as a human resource person, we don’t delve so much into the paperwork when evaluating an interviewee.

There are three things I look for in a candidate. Firstly, communication skills. If you can’t communicate efficiently and effectively, you’re disadvantaged in any given situation.

The rule of thumb is that your depth of knowledge is immaterial if you can’t articulate your achievements, you’ll fail the interview.

Secondly, I look for skills. If a candidate doesn’t tweak their Curriculum Vitae (CV) to reflect what the employer is looking for, the candidate’s CV won’t make it through the applicant tracking system (Ats).

With many employers getting hundreds of applicants, many are relying on Ats systems to shortlist people who meet the skill requirements for the role they are interviewing for.

Finally, I scout for experienced candidates and that’s a greater determinant of success in a position as compared to education. An employer is likely to consider a candidate with no experience in a case where the position is an entry level.

Typically, there is a three months’ probation with regular performance evaluation to determine if someone is fit to join the organisation.

Not all graduates are half-baked. Also, school will not teach you everything and universities are not a one fix stop for all the problems that we might have. What I have noticed however, is there is a lack of soft skills among many applicants.

Not many candidates are able to communicate. Generation Z employees are particularly difficult to work with because they don’t like criticism. You’d give someone positive criticism and he or she would abandon the laptop on the table and leave.

Some would say that they won’t accept an internship unless it’s paying. I always tell candidates not to follow money since money follows skills. Money is a reward you get after solving someone’s problem.

We need to build the right system in our universities with an emphasis on career placement centres, something that Strathmore University has gotten right.

The future belongs to the generalist with a basic understanding of different fields. This way, you’ll have a lot of transferable skills that can be helpful in your future career.

Closer home in Kigali, Rwanda, African Leadership University(Alu) is seeking to transform education in institutions of higher learning from the old way of doing things, to a modern approach.

“I am a user interface and user experience designer (UI/UX) graduate from the institution.
After high school, I joined Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) to pursue a degree in mathematics and computer science.

However, I did not like the course and how it was being taught. I also realised that the back end of coding might not have been the best for me. I then went to a coding boot camp, which only further confirmed my worries. As I tried to figure the situation out, I discovered Alu, applied and was accepted. 

What attracted me to Alu was the institution’s focus on developing leadership, something that helped me build my brand.

Rather than picking a course, students pick challenges and problems they want to solve, which would allow them to pursue education based on curiosity and not just completing a course. The Pan African aspect of the institution, with students from all over Africa, was also a key motivation to join it.

What I found different in Alu is that it completely transforms how teaching in universities is done. You don’t have lecturers per se for the first year, but a facilitator instead.

The main purpose of the facilitator is not to directly answer your questions but to guide conversations within the classroom. This meant that everyone in the class was knowledgeable, a source of wisdom as they could share different perspectives that could shape the conversation.

As a result, you immediately feel important, your idea matters and your experience too. I found that interesting in a way that it empowers young people to believe in their voice, learn how to express themselves and engage with others.

I loved the fact that soft skills were being given adequate attention and the institution cared to develop the students’ abilities to think critically, have an analytical mind, manage and interpret data, break problems into small chunks besides leadership and effective communication.

Additionally, it made sure that by the time we were graduating, we had one year working experience by linking us to jobs and internships.

Our courses were very practical and we had real world companies coming to the school with real world problems, which we could tackle and present the solutions to the companies.

Currently, Alvin is a UI/UX designer for a San Francisco based company, AtlasGo. He is also a multimedia designer for a company called The Room and a designer lead for a new product development company in Minnesota, US.

I am a fourth year student at the Duke University in North Carolina, studying several courses; international comparative studies, gender, sexuality and feminists, and African-American studies. This is made possible by the liberal arts curriculum offered at the institution.

Liberal arts education is defined through four cardinal disciplines: arts, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences.

This basically is the modernised version of what ancient Greeks had in place qualifications for what constituted education. They spoke about rhetoric, philosophy, arithmetic and grammar, which are the four cardinals that got translated to natural sciences, humanities, social science and arts in modern times.

My current course is mostly categorised under humanities that encompass disciplines like global politics, economics, environmental science as well as a little bit of statistics.

Taking feminists studies gives me a lens to understand the different positionalities people are predisposed to, because of their different nationalities, genders, sexuality and class status. It explores the history and political situation of different people. I also take African history simply to understand the past better.

With the Kenyan education system having clearly cut out lines where you know a student of education is likely going to be a teacher, while an engineering student will become an engineer; what will someone studying international comparative studies, feminist studies and African studies pursue as a career? Various things.

The Kenyan system is rigid and once you are enrolled in a certain course, you can’t take classes outside the recommended curriculum, and if you’re lucky to do so, the bulk of units will be overwhelming.

Liberal arts education gives you the opportunity to explore different disciplines until you’re able to figure out how to translate the soft skills or hard skills and technical skills that you acquire into real life situations.

In my case, I am basically doing three courses on the pre-law track. I want to be a lawyer once I graduate, so, I am exploring different disciplines, all building up to one major, before applying to a graduate school where I can study any kind of law.

Some of my schoolmates will become doctors, engineers or any other profession they might be interested in.

Liberal arts education might just be the change we need to make and it needs to start right from high school where the final grade is the defining factor in the courses one will land at the university and then also change how learning happens in universities.

Once we switch the college curriculum to allow students to take different courses across different schools, you’ll basically remove this notion to peg one’s success to any particular course and allow students to explore other alternatives.

Your undergraduate should not lead to a job, but something greater- a vocation.

What do you think about education in Kenyan institutions of higher learning?

I would say that the institutions of higher learning are doing their best within their mandate and existing infrastructural and legal frameworks. Whether the education system achieves its intended objective is another discourse. I know there has been a lot of discussion in terms of the products that we churn and as to whether it meets the requirements of the market.

What are your thoughts on a liberal arts education?

I think liberal arts education is very important and I am totally in support of it. When you look at some of these arts, they give you a perspective of life. They add sense into your knowledge. They give you a worldview to which you can anchor your knowledge. This is what is very significant in terms of nurturing a holistic student.
In my experience, when I did my masters in a liberal arts curriculum in Japan, I learnt a lot of things that edified my career in science. It made me understand deeper the role of science in international peace and security, how much science drives the world and how the superpowers use science to set themselves apart. These are things that I may not have known, had I not gone through that curriculum.

What impact can liberal arts philosophies have on students taking Stem subjects?

Without liberal arts, you realise that you have a lot of knowledge but you don’t know how to apply it to better the world. You have a lot of power, which you’re not aware of. Embedding liberal arts into Stem is very significant.

Once, I was doing a programme on entrepreneurial mindset among our students, where I collaborated with a university in the US in facilitating the training.

The results were amazing. Students were able to come up with projects and some of them have gotten into ventures that are aligned with the courses that they did. If they had not gone through this experiential training on entrepreneurial mindset, they would not have actually done that.

So you can imagine the impact that would happen if other arts could be embedded, not necessarily in the curriculum, but even as an extracurricular activity that trains the student to think in the specific lines of the courses that they do.

Why then are we not implementing a liberal arts curriculum in Kenya?

The reason why it’s not yet happening in Kenya is that we haven’t appreciated it. The professionals that we nurture always have shortcomings. For instance, to produce an engineer, you have specific courses that they need to finish.

Adding extra units to their curriculum overloads them, and subtracting some makes them handicap in the affected area.

It’s best when the additional skills are sought extracurricular, or as a training like the entrepreneurship programme I have been running. When done as an experiential programme, the student knows that the outcome is to hone particular skills and not just to pass an exam.

How would you advise someone interested in getting the full benefits of a liberal arts education?

If someone is able to take their child abroad to pursue a liberal arts curriculum, I’d advise them to do it because it’s eye-opening. For those who are unable to afford, there are local mechanisms of attaining it.

I can attest that students have got a lot of time, and I always advise my learners to use it to make themselves a holistic person. Hone your skills and become a good communicator, a team player, good collaborator and a critical thinker with high order thinking.

Be a problem solver and a person who can influence and transform their society. Therefore, take a step and read books or listen to informative documentaries. The exposure you will gain is life-changing.