Why Most of Fresh Graduates are Half-Baked

By Njeri Mickeydan Kioko

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There have been ongoing debate that there are many graduates and there are no jobs. Well from the employers feedbacks things seem different. Many of them say that most of these graduates are ‘half-baked’. A senior HR officer of pay TV provider told Campus Vibe (of the Nairobian newspaper back in 2018) that most graduates being churned out by universities are not yet ready for employment.

“Most of them are enthusiastic yet not ready for the job market. They do not possess the technical skills that employment demands. So in the event that we hire them, we have to spend more money as a company to train them,” he told Campus Vibe. He blames the mass production of graduates by the public universities for churning out ‘unemployable’ graduates.

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Adding: “I think students in the public universities are not getting proper instruction by their lecturers owing to their large number in contrast to those from private universities. The ratio of students to lecturers in my view isn’t giving learners an environment where they are able to get proper instructions from lecturers.”

He said most graduates he has interviewed and found unfit for employment are from public universities. He said students these days are more concerned with passing their CATs and exams than acquiring knowledge and skills. “This is caused by the system of education where learners are drilled right from primary school to secondary school. As a nation, we talk more of A students than skilled and knowledgeable and hands on students,” he said.

But is this really the case? If yes, what can we do about it? Yes, it is. As far as I know, is not everything that you will be taught in classes. Even the lecturers remind us about this bitter truth every time we are with them in the lecture halls. My lecturer who’s also the Faculty Dean Professor Kyalo Wa Ngula always tells us that the work of the lecturer is to teach 30% and the rest 70% is the work of the student to teach himself but most of the students expect vice versa.

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This is why we find that most students are lazy. Many students don’t want to go ahead an extra mile, and what happens when they go out there to enquire for employment and they don’t qualify; they blame the institution or the lecturers who taught them. Even if the lecturers start doing according to the students expectations, that is, teaching 70% and the students to be researching 30%, it will still not work. Many students want to be given food, be chewed for and be swallowed for, which is impossible.

This mostly applies to people who are doing courses like journalism and mass communication, media studies and among others which require practical practice which is rarely offered in classes. The reason being that the time to cover the whole course theory work and practical work is limited. You can also find that the theory work is a lot, so by the time the lecture finishes teaching theory so that he/she can start teaching practicals, the time is already up. This is why students are expected to go on an extra mile and teach himself/herself those practicals during his/her own free time.

The rise of AI has also accelerated this situation. Is not news to find out that a big percentage of students in the universities are using AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, Gauth and Nova to do their assignment. In some cases, students are caught cheating exams using these AI tools. Even though there are serious consequences when one is caught, that is, suspension of 1000 academic days; it still doesn’t stop these students from using these AI tools. It instead makes them come up with better and unnoticeable methods of using these AI tools. This has made things worse since many students are becoming more dump, since they can’t even retain the theory they are taught in class. Why retain the theory and AI will do all the work for them?

Much as the former CS for Education Amina Abdala back in 2018 brought to the limelight the matter of lazy lecturers, another problem that has dogged public universities in Kenya, especially after the enactment of double intake, is the ratio of students to lectures. The number of students ina class has grown five fold and so a lecturer cannot teach and follow up on the academic progress of individual students. For instance Chuka university admitted above 7000 freshmen in 2025, meaning in a class there are more than 100 students in a lecture hall versus one lecturer.

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Education expert Dr. Evelyn Jepkemei says: “What we need to do is to enhance quality research and development, creae innovation hubs and incubation units within universities and then teach philosophy as the basis for university education.” The education expert also faulted the Commission for University Education for only focusing on structural indicators like budget regulation compliance.