Sociology and Anthropology courses should be restructured, not abolished, Mr. Deputy President

Just like most Kenyans, I learnt of our Deputy President, Hon. William arap Samoei Ruto’s successful defence of his PhD thesis in amazement after the much publicised previous attempt about two years ago apparently failed to meet the mark.

I bet everyone was as impressed by this development considering his busy schedule as the second in command to the President of the Republic of Kenya and also his oversight role in his flourishing family businesses.

What, however stole the headlines was his remarks regarding the relevance or otherwise of Sociology and Anthropology courses as offered by our local universities to the Kenyan job market.

This he spoke as he launched the TVET Competency Based Educational and Training Framework at The Kenya Technical Trainers College, Gigiri – a ground-breaking initiative that will, no doubt, enable youths to easily acquire relevant and practical skills from Vocational Training Centres across the 47 counties.

The said remarks by Mr. Ruto must have caught the university union’s leadership off-guard because till today they are yet to utter a word about the matter. Maybe it’s this handshake thing.

Nonetheless, it is one of those instances whereby you would have been forgiven for imagining them scrambling for media attention in order to condemn the unwarranted threat on one of their main cash cows, but no.

Instead, we were treated to Mr. Ruto’s supervisors’ photo-op at the steps of the University of Nairobi’s Biological Sciences Department as they bid their famous candidate goodbye.

It is hard to pin point at what juncture the DP formed the opinion that such courses had outlived their usefulness.

Perhaps he picked the cue from the chit chat with his professors on his way out after the grueling defense; or it could have been a Freudian slip exposing his bigoted opinion held since his undergraduate years on the superiority of some degree courses over others – akin to BA standing for Being Around or Bachelor of Anything as some of us used to ignorantly tease our fellow comrades - some now Sub-county commissioners and senior government administrators.

Only he can tell.


Why we still need more social scientists 

While one can appreciate Mr. Ruto’s point of view that the job market as it currently is, is saturated with unskilled graduates and therefore the need to emphasise on more young people undertaking technical courses that can lead to self-employment, I feel that there might have been a subliminal message in his remarks that if left uninterrogated might cause some unintended consequences in the wider context.

To students currently pursuing Sociology and Anthropology courses and its graduates, you need not feel inadequate or harbour any thoughts of jumping ship now. Your heart is in the right place!

The local job market might be clueless as relates to what to do with your proud qualifications, but worldwide you are very highly regarded and your demand is insatiable; we just need to raise our expectations a little bit and may be correct a few deviations as we shall see later.

A file photo of ecstatic graduates

As opposed to clinical psychologists who study individuals and how well they deal with internal conflicts and their environment, sociologists and anthropologists study the behaviour of humans within groups as well as the society in general; and the difference between the two is that while sociologists deal with the society, anthropologists deal with culture.

Facing Mount Kenya, written by our founding father, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in 1938 while he was still a student at the London School of Economics is a classic anthropological study of the Kikuyu ethnic community’s way of life.

The book has often been cited as a benchmark for anthropological studies by subsequent researchers due to its ability to succinctly demonstrate to the world that the African had a life before the colonialists rudely invaded his land.

Today, Anthropology students have tons of literature to refer to and build on as they study various peoples’ cultures across the globe, which can also be extended to urban culture as well – their socialisation, lingo (sheng), music, fashion and so forth.

Another example is Professor Caroline Elkin’s work titled Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya, which I believe is her chef d’ouvre so far.

The book offers a detailed account of the suffering occasioned by the British colonialists on the Kenyan natives. and noteworthy is the fact that she worked very closely with local Social scientists as her research assistants.

This remarkable masterpiece is also a testament that an outsider can sometimes tell a better story than the subjects (Who might be biased) if he or she is determined to and most importantly if he or she loves the work!

What stood out in this particular work by Elkins  was her ability to influence the subject of the book (Mau Mau veterans) to speak truth to power by taking legal action against the British Government for gross violations of their human rights during the state of emergency (1952-1959).

It is noteworthy that this matter ended with the latter issuing a public apology, albeit belated, as well as giving some monetary compensation with a promise to construct a Mau Mau memorial in Nairobi, not only in remembrance of Kenya’s dark past but also as a symbol of reconciliation.

Therefore, it is important to appreciate that even as we embrace the initiative to go the technical courses way, we must endeavour to understand its impact on society holistically and in the long run as well as the group dynamics involved; and in this regard, only Social Scientists can help us do that.

Imagine a situation where we end up with a lot of skilled youth who are economically engaged but with high rates of depression or crime?

What could we learn for instance, from the immigration trends in the last few years that show an increase in the cadre of semi-skilled and skilled work force amongst foreigners and refugees, unlike in the past where they could only do menial jobs?

You might be tempted to wonder what empirical data was being relied upon to prove that some courses are useless, so to speak; or do we just get this hunch from the calibre of graduates prompting us for jobs during family gatherings?

It is of paramount importance that the matter is well thought-out so that in the end we do not put out a candle light only to ignite an inferno.


Society’s mirror 

The work of social scientists is to provide a mirror to the society through which it can be able to see itself.

This way, it is possible to evaluate its progress or lack thereof and make the relevant course corrections to ensure its harmonious continuity.

Sociology and Anthropology courses, therefore, are foundational disciplines that should be given the pre-eminence they deserve as they are at the heart of our posterity.

I dare say that if the authors of the Holy Book had anything in common skill-wise, it must have been their ability to study society and provide meaningful feedback that ensured it does not self-destruct.

Having said that, what should be of concern to every adult Kenyan citizen now is our collective neglect of these disciplines such that our top most leaders can ridicule them in public and no one bat's an eyelid.

What chance does a sociologist now have of accessing funding for research? You can bet that their requests would be politely declined before they are sent away to handle general knowledge units in undergraduate evening classes in some satellite campus somewhere.

This should not be the case as it would be a waste of our best talents; no wonder the end of brain drain is not in sight.

Pioneer sociologists like the Frenchman Émile Durkheim raised the discipline’s profile as an actual science during the nineteenth century after years of being lumped together with Psychology.

His ground breaking book titled Suicide: A Study in Sociology attempted to explain the differing suicide rates amongst a group of people e.g., between Protestants and Catholics to which he ascribed the stronger social controls amongst the latter as the reason why they had the least number of suicides (You can imagine the impact of such a revelation to the French population at the time to-date).

This paved way for the modern day Sociology discipline as we now know it.

Durkheim stressed on viewing society as an organism whose parts must work together for it to work efficiently and, therefore, it being an evolving organism warrants that trends and patterns can be
anticipated through empirical data gathered through research and social experiments with the objective of informing policy and legislation.

In short, there should be a deliberate effort to have focused studies on various aspects of our society  for purposes of its continuous improvement because we barely have any data, either since the scholars that are entrusted with such work shy away from the seemingly tedious work - research - or they do not perceive it as you are beginning to right now.

Universities, therefore, should best endeavour to restructure their Sociology, Anthropology and other Humanities' curriculums and increase their relevant budgets in order to make this possible.

Expanding their scope would also help us to continue redefining our own identity as a society instead of always aping other cultures of whom we have very little in common in terms of background.

In addition to that, such courses could be marketed as ideal for creatives and those with an inclination for curiosity and the maturity and passion to view society holistically.

Scholars can take advantage of these youth’s exuberance to conduct in-depth research on a particular subject by increasing the scope of data collection as well as by observational research to refine their conclusions.

The limit to knowledge is up to the student, and as the adage goes, ‘’If the student is ready, the teacher will appear’’. That way, we could have those not cut out for such demanding coursework pursue the so-called technical courses.

Instead of denigrating these social sciences, the Government could show that it is serious about our general well-being by helping to set up a research institute along the lines of the Institute of Personality and Social Research (University of California, Berkley) in order to provide social scientists with a platform where they can engage and test their theories and empirical findings with their peers before generalising them for the masses' benefit.

As you may have learned in class already, any discipline that you pursue in school is just a well-marketed compilation of relevant topics researched and given credence over time.

Serious academicians know this and therefore, endeavour to produce pioneering and impactful work which once it receives critical acclaim and possibly recognition, can be slotted in the curriculum as new knowledge.

Modern societies have been transformed after years and years of purposeful study of key areas of interest with the goal of establishing cause and effect in order to elicit certain outcomes given a set of similar circumstances in future.

Similarly, we should also come to the realisation that we have not come this far as a society to only come this far. We can predict our future by studying our society today instead of living randomly.

The fact is that, since the advent of the emotional intelligence (EQ) paradigm in the late nineties, organisations too have gradually become people-centered as opposed to being structurally oriented.

Understanding markets, therefore, through the prism of gender, ethnicity and race, inequality as well as demography calls for the head-hunting of organisational psychologists and social scientists who can utilise their tools to assist in predicting future behaviour of their target markets.

Talent managers as well should also review their HR policies to see that they are in tandem with the future organisational needs and not lump all employees into the traditional functions of human resource, finance and marketing.

It is a shame that arts and humanities degrees nowadays are similar to entry exams for other unrelated disciplines such as Law, CPA and the like.

In conclusion

Useless degrees, if there’s anything like it, would include courses like cooking and dancing because all you need to prove that you can dance or cook is actually to DO It!

Therefore, Mr. Deputy President, it is not proper to seem to pit certain professions against others, so to speak, since all of them have a role to play in society.

More so, our social scientists need to be encouraged more to continue extending the limits of the existing body of knowledge revolving around our dynamic society.

This is because technical courses also require some degree of dexterity, a gift not available to all. A wastewater technician with poor coordination skills will only make your homesteads smelly.

Having said that, it is important that our policy makers also remain objective as they lay down the relevant guidelines since all our youth can’t fit the same mould.