We just cannot have graduates crushing stones!
Amos Kimutai (left), a university graduate and quarry worker with fellow youths Duncan Korir, Peter Langat and Johna Korir all of who are diploma holders at a quarry in Tendwet village in Bomet County on September, 2, 2021
The heartbreaking story of the week was about the college graduates from Bomet East Constituency who crush stones for a meagre Sh100 wage to feed their families.
Mr Amos Kimutai, a bachelor of science graduate in petroleum chemistry from Kisii University, Mr Peter Kipng’etich Langat, a diploma holder in health records, Mr Johna Korir, who has a diploma in mechanical engineering and Dancun Korir, a certificate and diploma holder in electrical engineering, have become the laughing stock of their villages and the antithesis to the cliché, “Education is the key to success”.
For Sh100 a day, the four young men who are in the prime of their lives –in their mid-20s – sweat it out under the sweltering heat, feeling cheated by a system that encourages young people to work hard in school in anticipation of non-existent jobs. Years of class, assignments, exams and midnight reading have all culminated in an odd job that fetches less than a dollar a day for these young Kenyans.
It is especially painful when you consider that in previous political campaigns, young Kenyans were promised something in the neighbourhood of 500,000 jobs per year. One may argue that the politicians failed to specify which jobs, seeing as the Bomet Four are not alone in this crisis; thousands of young Kenyans are walking around with degrees, diplomas and even master’s degrees but without jobs.
In the midst of succession politics and the now famous political transfer window in which politicians are scrambling for the best-suited ‘political vehicle’ in the upcoming elections, I doubt they have the time to think about jobless youth who have to split that Sh100 between food, rent and school fees.
A moment to reflect
That said, I think it is time we as a nation took a moment to reflect about the youth of this country, who, may I remind us, make up 75 per cent of the total population. We cannot consider ourselves a successful society if we have young people earning Sh100 or less a day. This has nothing to do with a degree or a diploma. Nobody, degree holder or not, deserves to earn such low pay for such hard work, period.
We cannot be the society that pushes its youth through a rigid and unfair education system that renders them failures for not attaining certain grades and continues to punish even those that make it past the so-called pass marks.
We must not be that society that punishes hard work – and yes, this includes manual labour – while rewarding mediocrity, corruption and impunity with lofty positions in society and government. We cannot continue to break the spirits of millions of hardworking young people who put in years of hard work only to miss job opportunities.
And, of course, if anyone is listening, we need a solid rescue plan for Kenyan youth that will address the joblessness and the helplessness that accompanies such situations. We must do better for these young folks. After all – to paraphrase Michelle Obama – the measure of any society is how it treats its young people.
