It has taken me ages to do an update in here but here i am.
This day (Monday, 29/09/2014) may have not started very well. Having woken up very early in the morning, a friend of mine was supposed to assist me to do data analysis for my MBA Research project only to realize that we could not successfully complete the regression analysis bit due to a mistake in that could be avoided if my supervisor or the defense panel would have been more keen.! Before my hard disc explodes, let me speak out. This has been the journey. Walk with me…..
This day (Monday, 29/09/2014) may have not started very well. Having woken up very early in the morning, a friend of mine was supposed to assist me to do data analysis for my MBA Research project only to realize that we could not successfully complete the regression analysis bit due to a mistake in that could be avoided if my supervisor or the defense panel would have been more keen.! Before my hard disc explodes, let me speak out. This has been the journey. Walk with me…..
In
here, I have been pursuing an MBA with a bias in Human Resources Management.
This is an eighteen unit course plus a research project but I decided to take
an extra two to make them twenty, being twelve common course units, four specialization
units in HRM, another four in Strategic Management and then take a research
project in the field of HRM. A Major and a minor..? Not really. There is no
such a provision at this level but for someone who is knowledge hungry, this
was a nice delicacy especially the Strategic Management Specialization units. It is worth noting that life in a public
University is completely different from that in private
universities/institutions that I had previously attended. The classes are big
and student lecturer relationship not very well managed. We had classes that
had almost 250 students which only made the situation worse.
How I joined The
University of Nairobi and the struggles therein.
In
the Last few months, close to completion of my higher diploma classes, I applied
for admission for MBA at the The University of Nairobi. Before this
application, I said a prayer and told God that if this application will be
received and approved, then He will provide for school fees and if it is not
His will, then let this application not be approved. After sometime, I received
a text confirming that my application had been approved. In my bank account, I
had less than thirty thousand shillings and the fees for the first semester
was Ksh 99,500 meaning that I had a
deficit of over sixty thousand that my payslip could not raise as I had already
overburdened it with the Undergraduate and Post graduate diploma studies Loans.
I hence started to wonder where I would get the remainder of the cash since I
was to start the classes within the next one month. I begun approaching my
friends in Nairobi especially those who we had assisted each other financially in
the past but none of them was willing to assist me with not even a single
penny. One day I left for the village and tried to share with other friends
including a church leader who used to invite me for Church Fund raising among
others hoping that they would lend me but none of them was willing too. I gave
up and left for the Kerugoya-Nairobi stage so as to board a matatu back to
Nairobi have failed in my mission.
Before
paying for my ticket, an auntie of mine came across my mind hence I left
immediately and boarded a matatu to a place called Kangaita. I got there and
shared my problems with her and by the grace of God, she promised to send me
Ksh 50,000 but after requesting his ‘children’ as this was to be loaned from a
family fortune that she held in trust. I talked to my cousins and this was
approved hence come Monday, I had Ksh 50,000 credited to my account. This loan
would later cause me pains as I realized that the approval was a bait as my
cousins later demanded to be given a share as an ‘outsider’ had benefited from
this kitty and there was no way for them not to be given a share.
However, God
continued to open more doors and by the end of the same week, my younger
brother loaned me another Ksh 20,000 hence adding the total to sum to over Ksh
100,000 ready for my first semester. I was still worried on how I would raise
the money to pay back the loans and raise enough for the second semester but
God provided this too! From a small
Kerosene business that a friend of mine and I run in the village plus the
little I was earning by then, I was able to repay them. God continued to provide in the subsequent
semesters. Apart from increased allowances in my pay slip that were back dated,
the only large amount I can remember exactly where I got from was Ksh 140, 000
which was from higher education loans board. I must admit that the rest was a
miracle and I was able to pay all without being out of class not even in a
single semester due to lack of school fees. In all this time, I got to learn
that if one involved God in his/her plans from the word go, then He will stand
with him/her all trough until the project is successfully completed. This is
well captured in Proverbs 16:3 Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. I can surely testify of
God’s beyond expectations provision as in this course, I did not only complete
my studies in record time but even got a bonus as I was able to specialize not
only in Human Resources Management but took extra units in strategic management
with ease as I said above. I experienced the faithfulness of the Lord first
hand and surely, I choose to live for Him. Jeremiah
29:11-13 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares
the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope
and a future. 12 Then
you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
13 You will seek me and
find me when you seek me with all your heart. True to these holy words I was done with my class work by August
2013.
The research project
process, the ups and downs.
After I was done
with class work, then came time to start my research project. Supervisor
allocation took ages as I was not allocated one in 2013 only for this to be
done in 2014 and when it was done, I was allocated a Professor as my
supervisor. The experience with him was a great one as he is the type that
walks one down the path of research work with ease, love and total
professionalism. The only bottle neck was that he was a busy man as he used to
supervise both the MBA students and PHD students too not forgetting that he had
other duties outside supervising research projects. Securing time with him
could be a nightmare at times and required a lot of patience especially
factoring in other engagements that he also had in the University. However I was able to do Chapter one to Three (Research
Proposal) and finally, it was time to defend the proposal after months of
printing copies of the proposal, making corrections again and again but with
one goal in mind, trying as much as it is reasonably possible to graduate by
December 2014 God willing. With this goal in mind, all that was left was total
prayers and working round the clock so as to beat the deadline but I found solace
in Proverbs 16:9 In their
hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord
establishes their steps.
The
project defense took place but to be frank, it fell short of all that I
expected compared to my Undergraduate experience at KCA University that I can
say was simply awesome as the students owned the whole process and the
panelists were just facilitating the whole process. At University of Nairobi, the
experience was different and the absence of my Supervisor from the panelists
made me feel vulnerable and true to my worries it was not an experience to be
proud of. I successfully defended it but had to remove some variables from my
proposal as per the directive by the panelists who never gave the students the
conducive environment to express themselves and just take them through what
they had prepared in the project proposal. With no option left, I had to
surrender to their guidelines lest graduation remained a mirage. A research
project is one of the requirements that can keep one from graduating for years
due to frustrations that comes with the whole thing. I guess it can only be
fair to call it a necessary evil. Some students had to pay thousands of money
for someone to do the project for them to a tune of Ksh 50,000!
Correcting
and complying to the defense panel recommendations was another tall order since
i had to reorganize my proposal a fresh but I thank God that by 25/08/2014, my
proposal correction form was signed hence a go ahead to collect data. This was simply another tough part as my
experience with field work in the past projects was a headache. I had to break
for a period of around two weeks just to relax and re energize so as to face
the task ahead. By the mercy of God,0n 06/09/2014 a friend of mine assisted in
printing my questionnaires that were totaling to 200 hence giving me a good
push towards preparing for my Chapter four and five, that is Data collection,
Analysis, Presentations and Recommendations. This friend of mine by the name
Sammy is a real treasure as he had been assisting me throughout my under
graduate to post graduate studies. From helping me purchase a laptop, a
printer, repairing my Laptop when infected by viruses, fixing software issues
and many other IT related problems that minus him, my journey to higher
education could have been more difficult and expensive than it was. I thank God
for such humble friends who I can proudly say that they were God send.
Monday
08/09/2014 marked the day that I started collecting data for my MBA research
project. Collecting information from police officers can be one of the hardest
tasks one can engage in but with divine favor, it all started so well and the
most amazing thing is that I got a 90% response rate. Glory be to the most high
for being so good to me as the respondents treated me so well, were so willing
to take part in the research project hence the remaining bit which is coding
the questionnaires, imputing data into a computer, analysis, presentation of findings and
recommendations. The process of coding and data input was a whole new
experience especially where a large number of questionnaires are involved. This
made me appreciate those who are usually involved in doing such work daily as
this was not a joke!
This
may have cast some insight as to why students willingly cough up to Ksh 50,000
to avoid these hustles. The most heart
breaking thing (To those interested in quality education) is that most of
graduates/professionals have certificates whose content remains alien to them.
Why do I say so? Some start from copying exams but this does not end there
since the research project now exposes the rot in institutions of higher
learning. As previously indicated, it
costs up to Ksh 50,000 for one to be assisted in taking the research project.
One just procures the services of research companies who ask for a down
payment, a research topic and work
begins. This is a very well organized affair as the student picks the document
from the research company, presents it to
the supervisor, corrections are agreed on and then he/she takes it back
to the out sourced party who does the corrections and the whole process
continues till the research project is done! The defense panels may be one of
the biggest let downs as this vice can be detected or minimized at this level
if the student is tasked to take the panel through the whole paper but the
‘bully’ mentality in most panelists makes it this worse. The defense is hurriedly done, panelists
dominated and to say the least, a big joke!
This
may be the reason why most organizations have employees at managerial levels
who simply hide behind their Cvs, are bullies, the subordinates do all the hard
work, the bosses do the reporting and submissions and take all the credit. I
can only imagine how terrible it is to work under a person who bought his/her
way into management simply because the CV was well drafted, one is well connected, slept his/her way up
to the top or used other ‘digital’ short
cuts that most apply to get where they are. No wonder most ‘successful’ people
cannot tell ‘the how’ in terms of the journey they walked to get where they are
but only say that they hustled their way up!
An
interaction with Hr Professionals through a Face book page revealed that most
of us have the papers but lack the ‘human’ side at work, may be because they
never underwent the mental pain of doing it but only the financial pain. From
bullying those who ask questions, those who err, those who ask ‘simple’ questions
and all manner of what I would personally call un called for made me question
whether we really acquired our current positions through merit, whether the
recruitment panels did a job that can stand the test of time or where things
really went wrong. Someone who attended classes consistently, did the Cats and
the assignments by himself/Herself, did the research project from the word go,
defended it professionally, went to the whole hustle of data collection up to
the final document can do better than this hence I personally think that
employers should do more than they are doing to ascertain the real value of an
employee and that research projects and thesis should be presented at one point
or the other during the interviews.
Why
do I say this? Organizations are entities that experience problems whose cause
need to be well researched, a review of how other organizations facing similar
challenges solved them done, an analysis of the available data to establish the
trends, presentation of such findings and recommendation for possible solutions
done. I personally believe that one must be conversant with research process
even if at managerial levels so as to competently interrogate such papers when
presented by various departments. Back to class work, I also realized that team
work was also missing as five member group assignments were done by two or
three members but the document presented like it was done by all. Some members
found it difficult to send in their registration numbers for inclusion in the
final document despite the fact that they never took part in doing the task /assignment (after all, ‘Degree ni
harambee) the saying was. Others
submitted their individual contributions to group assignments that were poorly
researched, just downloaded from the internet even without editing! Some of
these were men and women who head big companies, have very flashy gadgets, put
on designer outfit but I never dreamed
of working under any of these! This may be one of the reasons why there is a
serious disconnect between industry and higher education beyond the obvious. Either
way, this is Kenya where the ‘how’ never matters but the ‘where’ is what is
really valued. One can cut as many corners as is reasonably possible to get
where he/she wants to go. How do I pray that the otherwise happens!
My
personal experience is that I need to own all that I claim to be mine. As in I
need to work my way to where I need to go, assisted by other people in a
professional way, need not to buy my way up but remain patient, professional
and self driven however long that will take! From undergraduate studies, my
post graduate diploma and in the Mba classes, attending the maximum number of
lectures, timely submission of my assignments and sitting in for my continuous
assessment tests without compromising them has been my driving force (except one time that I tried to carry a
mwakenya but could not even read the contents as I was sweating, shaking and
was confused for over one hour without even writing my name on the answer sheet
and in panic mode is may have left it in between the answer sheet,
submitted it that way and left praying that it was not discovered as this meant
disqualification from the University!) The worry was that I was not able to
copy, the paper could have been discovered and
I would have been disqualified
and from that day I chose to sit for my papers and even when I failed I sat for
supplementary exams with courage as I
knew that I failed but some ‘passed’ but
copied everything. From that day till the results were out, I can say that I
‘’ate, drunk and slept prayers’’ with a promise to Maker that I will never dare
dream of copying an exam again. I condemn no one who copies exams, buys the
project or even sleeps for him/her to get a grade for in this life one chooses
the way to live but consequences of such decisions/choices come to haunt us in life however long they
take to pop up.
Do I see this trend in
the Police service where I work…?
May
be the same thing is what I happen to
see being exhibited in the Police service where there was hope that the
graduate Inspectors who earn a direct promotion from a constable to inspector
after graduating with degrees would
bring in a reformed way of dealing with their juniors but have failed
miserably. I bet when their conduct is compared to the old folks usually
referred to as ‘Ngumbaru’ to mean not so much educated is just a shame to
higher education. There was so much hope that this crop of officers would bring
in a reformed way of doing things in the police service but my personal
experience is that the biggest percentage has been a big let down to the
‘graduates fraternity’ as most are simply bullies, are full of male/Female
egoism, want to be recognized as educated which rarely matches what an educated
person should be like.
The
degree for promotion mentality may be one of the reasons why most officers
just go to any other University and take
a course that costs the lowest and that takes the shortest time to complete and
after graduation one is able to rise to this ‘prestigious’ rank of a police
Inspector. An attempt to reason with this crop of graduates can earn one the
wrath of an ‘educated’ fellow as a good chunk of these fellows have no time for
the ‘un educated’. Take a case of a graduate with a second class honors upper
division in a certain field who practically confesses that he/she is not aware
of much of what is contained in their transcripts since the desire to have the
paper was driven by that of attaining the rank of an inspector and that’s it.
Somebody
wonders then, why do we have the level of education among police officers going
slightly high but performance in the police service continues to head south? My
bet is education is never valued in here as the argument is ‘kazi ya polisi ni
ile ile tu’ to mean that police work never changes. An ignorant statement that
I have heard some senior police officers say out very loudly. The argument is
that the police Occurrence book remains the same, the same uniforms, same
housing, more or less same rank structure, corruption in recruitments,
animalistic training in the name of ‘kuondoa uraia’ to mean removal of the civilian
mind from new recruits, lack of a needs driven recruitment, training, posting,
promotion and even placement just makes the matters worse. Most police officers
just work in here simply due to lack of a way out hence one must stick in to at
least educate the kids and do other few things here and there. The most
shocking thing is how much most of us earn after taking loans. Some have been
earning negative figures until recently a cap to how much one must not commit
with loans was introduced (1/3 of the basic Salary must not be used in securing
a loan) but this remains useless with existence of shy locks.
Advice/Caution. The next time a police officer loots
from you, do not be surprised as he/she may be out on a school fees search
mission, may be trying to ‘save’ as much as is reasonably available to buy
junks that are visible in most parking lots, buying beer and entertainment and
funding larger than life lifestyles among other ‘needs’ that Civilians must
foot the bill! A good number of officers, an almost negligible one however
don’t live like this! I however pity a good
number of those married to irresponsible male/female cops who most of the times
withdraw their salaries, drink/spend it all only for the wives/husbands to ask
for an explanation on how the money was spent only to receive severe
kicks/slaps reason being that they are not the one s who ‘put on uniforms’ to
work hence have no say on the salary of their husbands/wives. I will be quick
to say that there is a small number of officers who don’t live this kind of
lifestyle.
Is a police officer a liability
or an asset to this Nation..?
One
year after the #westgate attack was widely being commemorated; I wondered why I
had not seen a similar commemoration for the fallen heroes who died in the
Baragoi massacre. The same men in uniform who were engaged in Westgate rescue
mission were the same guys whose comrades were massacred in Baragoi hence I
could say there were double standards on matters terror or tragedy. This may be one of the reasons why being
arrested by a police officer is not a sweet thing due to the fact that one must always part way
with some money for release even when one
has broken no law. May be humane
treatment of police officers, proper funding and accounting of these monies,
modern and professional training, placement, promotion or even putting in a
well managed exit programme would be one of the ways to tame insecurity in this
nation lest we continue chasing shadows in the name of taming the run down
insecurity, corruption and mis management of matters police officers. How do
Kenyans expect an ill trained, housed, posted, fed, uniformed and stressful
police officers to be effective at work? Or we have Nyumba kumi to sort out insecurity?
My
fellow officers working in the operational areas may be the most vulnerable employees
of the Government of Kenya. These are areas where banditry, cattle rustling and
enemy attacks are the order of the day. Clean drinking water is a problem here,
proper sanitation a problem, no proper food, the officers are ever stressed and
marriages broken, allowances stolen by bosses and the little that is available is
barely adequate for survival. The married ones suffer most as commuting to
visit their ‘next of kin’ as popularly known in here , once in a month may
never be possible. May be if senior
government officers, politicians and those sitting in various commissions set
to address matters police officers visits these areas with all being subjected
to what police officers go through for only three days, police officers would
be given their rightful place in the society, would be paid well, trained well,
transferred and promoted through merit, would be well clothed, fed, housed and
even have access to the best medical facility in this nation. Kenya as a country
could be the safest in the region if not in the world….
