The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper print operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The Standard Group is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in matters of national and international interest.

Standard Group Plc HQ Office,
The Standard Group Center,Mombasa Road.
P.O Box 30080-00100,Nairobi, Kenya.
Telephone number: 0203222111, 0719012111
Email: [email protected]

NEWS & CURRENT AFFAIRS

The Nairobian

When a diploma can be better for you than a degree

Opinion

By Mike Nyagwoka | Jan 19, 2025

**Students during a past graduation ceremony.** [File, Standard]

Recently, I convinced a 2024 KCSE candidate who passed well enough to gain university admission to consider a diploma course. I pray and hope the advice works for her good because if it doesn’t, she will blame me.

But this is someone who had developed a passion for nursing and even retook her exams just to see if she could prop up the grades well enough to qualify for a diploma in nursing. She overdid herself and got grades better than she had anticipated, thus bringing her into this confusion.

She may qualify for other courses, but not nursing; yet that is where her passion is. With that reality I believed pursuing a diploma in an area of passion was more practical than pursing a degree for the sake of it.

This is the practicality we must approach life with now. Going to university indeed has some prestige attached to it, but not as much if one just wants to squeeze through. The real prestige is knowing you have actually been picked out of a crowd and thus on a path of least resistance to success due to perceived productivity potential.

Today, the university is actually the crowd, and if one approaches this significant step with some infantile imagination, one could hit a dead end. Sorry for being pessimistic here, but this is a reality we deal with daily.

Keep Reading business

Thankfully, my reasoning has been embraced. In 2024, over 47,000 students who had qualified for university admission chose not to pursue a degree. Ultimately, the goal is not to diminish the value of higher education, but to redefine it. The challenge is some degree courses were designed for a bygone era.

Over time, there has been a need to redesign them to fit into the current local economic situation and also serve global needs. We must be as practical as Maseno University was at some point when it added IT to nearly every course to serve a technological knowledge gap.

When I joined the university, courses like Communication and Public Relations were just being introduced to serve the need for PR professionals.

Soon after, a degree in Graphic Communication was introduced to also serve a growing need for such experts.

Today, digital marketing, social media management, coding, software engineering, and customer care are some of the courses that can land someone a remote job easily. These realities should guide the design of university courses and programmes.

More importantly, one must do a serious self-assessment before choosing which programme. As a believer, I know God designed each of us for a purpose. While the desire for a good income potential seems to override during the decision-making, one’s calling must be a factor too.

I know someone who found his passion in music while working in a bank. Teaching is among those careers that need a higher level of dedication, particularly at the lower classes. We will still need people in the security sector, agriculture, etc. Even in those careers that do not seem marketable, one can still shine.

[email protected]