By Nelson Komba
Reading about the appalling story of a Laikipia University first-year student who was stabbed to death has left me disturbed and extremely worried. However, who is to blame? Should we blame poor parenting again? No. I don’t think so.
I remember vividly how my first-year orientation ceremony was rushed; in fact, we were more attracted to the graduation regalia our professors appeared with but nothing more. The programme was packed, and the senior students used the opportunity to show off and stamp their authority on us. In short, most of us left the ceremony with sketchy details on how to seek help and specially to avoid strikes. Girls were warned of the consequences of early pregnancies and contraceptives were emphasized as opposed to abstinence.
These shallow orientation practices, sadly, are in almost all public universities in Kenya. Many university students have dropped out and parents have been left with questions of whether the university was in the first place the right choice for their children. Truth be told, the university is not a secondary school. Following keenly on the grade A students, a very small number continue to excel after joining the university. Many studies have pointed to poor transition strategies in Kenyan public universities. Is too much freedom to blame? No. I don’t think so.
Universities have a huge role to play in the overall holistic development of their students. These scrabbling of students without the proper infrastructure to facilitate proper learning must stop; preparing students to excel in their social life and their career trajectories must be at the center from the selection of these students to graduation.
Orientation must begin right from selections; a proper risk tagging mechanism must be put in place to identify specific students’ needs before reporting. This will help the universities to identify specific needs to address and place practical emphasis during orientation ceremonies.
Further, the data collected can help the universities to follow up on specific students such as those with living disabilities, coming from marginalized areas and with a high risk of suffering from mental health challenges due to change of environment or activities.
Mentorship is one of the best strategies for helping new learners adjust to new environments and fit in the new culture. Universities must put in place a mandatory mentorship culture at the university. Graduating class must commit to successfully mentor first-year students and present reports of their successful mentorship sessions as part of their social assignments to be allegeable for graduation. Not everyone can be a mentor, though; having peer-to-peer mentorship that is strategic can assist new students to navigate challenging situations.
The Laikipia university student could have simply dropped a panic message in a mentorship group and immediately someone would have visited her room and the situation could have probably been alleviated.
During orientation, the universities can introduce a professional learning buddy-system. The ‘fresha’ be required to choose someone to keep them accountable, to vent with and support them remain disciplined. A learning buddy can raise an alarm in case one has not appeared in school for a couple of days and parents can be notified. Access to psychosocial support must be introduced at this stage to connect learners with therapists.
Have you heard of situations where parents believe their children are in school only to find out that they got married and they have children? Such students even pay others to fill the attendance list.
Universities must equally operationalize and invest in their alumni and relations desks to enable first-year students to draw inspiration from their alumni and constantly invite alumni as key guests to address orientation ceremonies.
Universities in Kenya should go beyond writing and bolding code of conducts documents for the new students and invest in new strategies because time is catching up on them.
Nelson Komba is a Communication Coordinator at Generation Kenya.
