Audit degrees of all politicians

We learnt last week that the English language, British style, is, indeed, not our forte. Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe honestly confirmed (a rarity in government!) that only 10 out of 300 nurses headed for the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) passed their English test. Allegations of racism and science not being English, and UK just being discriminatory, were thrown about.  

I can now confirm that the textbook English we learn in Kenya (if we do) is miles apart from that embedded in the culture of the British. I should know as I hustled on the hospital wards there, like most other immigrants, to pay for my college. The English used in British hospital wards easily goes over your head when you first start as a Kenyan graduate. 

Instead of testing on ‘is’ and ‘was’, the UK should, instead, give a crash course on the everyday English used in the hospitals to help foreign nurses to familiarise themselves with common phrases and words that are understandable to British patients and ease communication between them and foreign nurses and/or doctors. It would be important to know, for instance, what it means to “open the bowels” or “having tea” in the evening (evening English tea is supper or dinner to Kenyans). Otherwise, patients could easily be left constipated or starved. 

Understanding the local language is also a safety issue. Patients could be put at risk by nurses and doctors who misunderstand diagnosis or dosage of medication due to language barrier.

The admission by CS Kagwe on the nurses’ failure of the English language test also made me wonder whether some of the nurses actually had fake degrees and the test exposed that. This is Kenya, after all, where use of fake academic papers has become an acceptable way of getting jobs, especially in the public sector. 

Fake academic papers

Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi is just one among hundreds of politicians perhaps occupying political seats they obtained by allegedly using fraudulent certificates. Were we to do a spot check on county assemblies, the Senate and the National Assembly, we could end up with empty seats. 

However, if it will take sending half the leaders home to instill credibility and trust in our politics, so be it. Let us start now, not in the 2023 government, by weeding out all those with fake degrees to set the template for credible leadership. Let us first give those in the national and county offices an opportunity to present their papers at the nearest station for verification. We should go further and make such information public. That would be wholly in the public interest.

There is a pandemic of use of fake academic papers in the country. Those corrupting education standards and democracy must be fought from all fronts. There are murmurs that Sudi was being targeted for his closeness to Deputy President William Ruto. That is such a cop out. The exercise should be devoid of politics. 

Prima facie evidence on many such cases suggests fraud and that should be our focus. Fraud around academic papers must be tackled across parties. There is nothing more unjust than for hardworking and honest citizens to be led by buffoons with shop-bought academic papers who could not tell their right from left. It can only get worse from here as every misfit in the land decides to join the fray for fake academic papers to muddy the waters further.

Setting terrible example

The culture of fake degrees has adversely affected not just governance but also education standards. Our leaders are setting a terrible example by using fake academic papers to rise to power. Why should anybody else bother to burn the midnight lamp to study if they can buy a certificate? 

The poor but gifted children and adults are the biggest losers in this regard. Those with the financial ability to influence decisions and obtain fake degrees will continue to mess up the country if nothing is done about the menace. 

Heads should roll at IEBC, EACC, Knec and all the other agencies tasked with clearing staff and political aspirants. Those responsible for turning a blind eye to these crimes and contributing to the breach of Chapter Six of the Constitution, on integrity, should also pay a price. There would be no fake certificates without enablers in government departments issuing them like sweets for short-term monetary gain.

Use of fake academic papers should be declared a national emergency. Short, sharp shock is what the fake certificate industry needs to stop their production. The government ought to scale up arrest and prosecution of those found to have used fake papers to gain employment illegally. 

Let the current regime get a large broom and take the bull by its horns by clamping down on fake academic papers once and for all. Failure to do so will erode confidence in our education and the country’s standing in the international arena.

Ms Guyo is a legal researcher. [email protected]. @kdiguyo