Five Kenyan universities from Kenyan have agreed to collaborate with German universities in an attempt to rid graduates of unemployment.
The tertiary institutions have decided on funding young promising innovators to help them reach their true potential. The institutions have already begun a campaign to create awareness among students to shift their minds from dreaming of being employed but instead create the jobs themselves. This is with the knowledge that there are extremely few job opportunities in Kenya with the number of people competing with more and more graduates from universities every year.
The Kenyan universities that have collaborated with German universities are Mount Kenya University, Dedan Kimathi University, Chuka University, Kenyatta University and Karatina University.
These universities will work together with Leuphana, Bonn-Rehn-Seign Leipzig and Wismar Universities alongside the University of Saarland which are from Germany.
The selection method the universities have adopted is by identifying learners with unique and innovative ideas, develop them and give them capital to make their entrepreneurial creations be a reality.
At the moment, 750 students have undergone training in the programme that is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and Germany’s Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.
Karatina University has gone one further and made entrepreneurship a compulsory programme for all students.
According to Karatina University’s administration, the approach has enabled students who are pursuing courses that are not related to business to be interested in entrepreneurship, paving a pathway to self-reliance or self-sufficiency without waiting on employment after they graduate.
Besides, the university’s approach has been enhanced by the institution opening a Tea institute in 2012 to help in research and push innovations further as well as adding value to the production of tea.
Universities participating in the collaboration held their first International Conference on Entrepreneurial Universities of Africa at Mount Kenya University on Thursday the 7th of October.
The institutions discussed on the possible ways of establishing entrepreneurial higher institutions of learning in Africa.
MKU’s Vice-Chancellor Prof Deogratius Jaganyi implored both the German and Kenyan collaborators to ensure that there are sustainable gains for posterity benefits.
Besides, Prof Jaganyi express concern following the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics’ revelation that 1.25 million out of 2.49 million skilled but jobless Kenyans are not seeking to be employed due to the realization that there are actually no jobs in Kenya.
“The best way of creating wealth is by entrepreneurship. We are glad that a good number of graduates, inspired by our founder Professor Simon Gicharu, have chosen to tread the investment path and this programme could not have come at a more opportune time,” said Jaganyi.
DAAD’s Kenyan representative Beate Schinndler-Kovats cemented Jaganyi’s sentiments by imploring African Universities to adjust the training needs accordingly so as to match the labour market demands as a way of overcoming unemployment in the country.