Rethinking Quality and Relevance of University Education in Kenya

Many stakeholders have expressed concern about the many graduates from Kenyan universities who after qualifying, not only fail to get jobs but also fail to venture into alternative forms of engagement to earn their livelihood, a scenario that raises question as to the quality and relevance of University education they got. The concerns being raised calls for rethinking of the quality and relevance of university education in Kenya. This study, therefore, sought to investigate the propensity of university education in Kenya to inculcate entrepreneurial culture in graduates. The theory of planned behaviour formed the theoretical foundation of the study. The study adopted a triangular design approach where views relating to entrepreneurial culture were sought from final year students from one public and one private university. The study targeted 3146 final year students drawn from University of Kabianga, (2272) and Kabarak University (874). From this, a sample of 614 students proportionately distributed among the two universities was drawn. Entrepreneurial environment was found to be more or less the same in both private and public universities recording moderate score. However, public university scored slightly higher. In conclusion, there is no significant difference in the levels of preference for entrepreneurship when comparison is made between public and private universities in Kenya. Arising from the current finding, the study recommends provision of better entrepreneurial support system.


Introduction
An economy characterized by high level of unemployment like Kenya, requires education system that equips learners with marketplace and entrepreneurial skills that will enable them to identify, pursue, and produce economic opportunities successfully (Yuthas and Epstein, 2013). While Education may meet international standards in every aspect, it may not help the recipients to surmount the challenges such as unemployment, The Mackay commission (1981) was the only one that focused on restructuring of education system and possibility of starting another university. The commission recommended the start of Moi University and restructuring and replacement of the 7-4-2-3 system of education with the 8-4-4 model which was designed to be practical oriented and meant to equip school leavers with pre-vocational skills and technological education. A further innovation of the 8-4-4 system was its emphasis on the capacity of learners to acquire entrepreneurial skills among others. Notwithstanding all the aforementioned efforts to realign education, University education in Kenya just like in Nigeria is fast losing the glamour that describes it as an excellent avenue for acquiring the necessary skills, knowledge, values and attitude for solving the fundamental problems of life (Akuegwu and Nwi-ue, 2016).

Statement of the problem
The youths in Kenya, being the majority, bear the greatest burden of unemployment (Republic of Kenya, 2011) and with marked increase in university enrolment rate, it is highly likely that a significant percentage of unemployed youth are university graduates (Oanda & Sifuna, 2016). Many of them remain jobless many years after graduation and not venturing into self-employment as an alternative, a worrisome scenario for the government and society at large. The concerns of the government and the society raise pertinent question as to the quality and relevance of university education in Kenya which may not only be producing graduates who do not have the motivation but also the capacity to venture into own businesses. This study, therefore, sought to investigate the propensity of university education in Kenya to inculcate entrepreneurial culture among Kenyan university graduates. The results may help to inform design of academic programs and pedagogical approaches suitable to enhance graduate entrepreneurial culture.

Objective and hypothesis of the study
The study sought to determine the Propensity of university education in Kenya to inculcate entrepreneurial culture in graduates. The following hypothesis was tested: H01: University education in Kenya has no significant Propensity to inculcate entrepreneurial culture in graduates.

Literature Review
In economies where the level of unemployment is very high, entrepreneurship may be the only antidote to this challenge (Akuegwu and Nwi-ue, 2016). Therefore, there is need to inculcate in youths, especially university graduates, the motivation and skills to venture into self-employment (ibid).
According to OECD (2009) the need to inculcate students with key (or core) skills; development of personal and social skills and Skills relating to business start-up or financial literacy necessary for successful entrepreneurship can be built into their academic or practical business opportunities within campus to enable them to acquire the aforementioned skills. This is because, in order for them to become job creators rather than job seekers, they should learn, from an early age, to be knowledgeable consumers, develop the right attitude towards work, and develop the skills needed to identify viable business opportunities and eventually start their own business undertakings (Ahmad, 2013). Mohamad, Hussin and Buang (2014) suggest that Universities whose academic programs incorporate enterprise programs enable students acquire entrepreneurial skills such as financial skills, management skills, start-up business skills, operational skills, marketing skills, and communication and management information skills and on their part Varela, (1997) and Veciana (1998) agree that it is also necessary for entrepreneurial education to inculcate in students: entrepreneurial culture, reorient student's mentality towards entrepreneurship, develop and stimulate in learners the entrepreneurial skills for self-employment or make them valuable intrapreneurs in organizations in the event that they opt for paid employment among others . Similarly, Amimo (2012) argues that the preparation and training of graduates should not only be restricted to making them suited to the post-industrial workplace as employees with employable skills, but in engendering in them entrepreneurial and business acumen as (self)-employers, who would be the engine of growth of the Kenyan economy.
Although research has shown that the desire to become own boss intensifies as one ages (Oriarewo, Agbim and Aondoseer, 2013), the reality of high unemployment makes it imperative for young graduates to make a radical shift in their thinking and attitude towards self-employment as an alternative to employment in big companies and entrepreneurship education can play a significant role in this.
As part of entrepreneurship programs, having students engage in business activities within campus enables them gain hands on experience in managing small enterprises hence provide experience and practical training to them, foster entrepreneurial talents and train them to be independent and courageous in carrying out any efforts (Mohamad et al, 2014). According to Babalola (2011) internship/attachment, encouraging students to work independently, access to start-up capital, availability of technology and/or raw materials, knowledge of profit margin, allowing them to take personal responsibility, exposing them to success stories of entrepreneurs, motivational talks from successful industrialist/ business men and exposing them to relevant skills or technical knowledge and know how are examples of university-led initiatives which develop entrepreneurial potential or interest in students who would otherwise not be interested. For any University to be relevant, it must produce graduates who would employ people rather than search for employment (Awuor, 2013)

Research Methodology
The setting for this research study was one private and one public university in Kenya.
This study adopted a triangular design approach where the Propensity of university education in Kenya to inculcate entrepreneurial culture was examined from the perspectives of students from a public and a private university. A total of 3146 respondents (2272 final year students from University of Kabianga, Public and 874 final year student from Kabarak University, Private) took part in the study. A sample of 614 students comprising of 340 and 274 for University of Kabianga and Kabarak University respectively was randomly selected to take part in the study.
Data was collected using A 68-item instrument named Quality of University Education (UnEdQUAL) questionnaire which is a modification of NSSE (2013) questionnaire that incorporated Gibbs (2010)  The instrument was validated by discussing with experts in the field of education and entrepreneurship (Firdaus, 2005). A parallel test on similar population of final year students from Moi University (Public) and Mount Kenya university (Private)was used to establish reliability of the modified instrument using a total of 30 questionnaire. Each of the ten scales in the questionnaire had Cronbach alpha coefficient greater than 0.7, with the exception of student-staff ratio scale which yielded an alpha coefficient of 0.478 attributed to the fact that it had only three scale items.
The overall questionnaire reliability was 0.8, P< 0.001 assessed using Karl Pearson's product moment coefficient of correlations indicating strong correlation between the two sets of data, an affirmation that both came from a similar population.
The administration of the questionnaires to the selected students was done with the help of Contact persons (registrars and lecturers) of their respective universities (Firdaus, 2005). This was done after due approval was obtained from University Vice chancellors of the respective universities.

Results and Discussion
From an expected total response rate of 614 students in the final years from both University of Kabianga and Kabarak University, a total of 524 questionnaires were received back representing 85.3% response rates. From individual universities, 86.8% and 83.6% response rates were achieved for University of Kabianga and Kabarak Universities respectively. One of the key rationales that informed the review of university curriculum in Kenya was the recognition that existing curricula concentrated on preparing students for the "take-a-job" option instead of "make-a-job" option. We sought to assess the extent to which this has been achieved by examining the intention of the final year graduates to venture into entrepreneurship.

Descriptive Statistics
From the results in table 1, students' preference for entrepreneurship at the end of their final year at the university received overall moderate rating with mean of 3.13 with standard deviation of 1.125 and 3.03 with standard deviation of 0.966 from students in public and private universities respectively. Comparatively, there was no significant difference in the levels of student's preference for entrepreneurship in both public and private universities. Bearing in mind that developing an entrepreneurial culture/orientation is dependent on the relationship between the goals of the entrepreneurship program, the audiences to which the program is delivered, the content of the entrepreneurship courses, the method of delivery and the assessment used (Niyonkuru (2005) & Alberti et al. (2004), it will be pre-emptive to conclude that the entrepreneurial culture/orientation in Kenyan universities is established.

Predictors of entrepreneurial culture
Based on the initial adopted questionnaire, there were mixed results on the nine predictors of graduates' entrepreneurial culture as shown in table 2. Students-staff ratio has been used as a key indicator of quality in higher education across the globe. The overall mean of all items measuring student-staff ratio was moderate with a mean of 3.21 & 3.57 for public and private universities respectively. Shortage of lecture rooms and personnel continues to undermine the levels of interaction between students and lecturers and consequently the quality of teaching in public universities, a position that is assumed to be better addressed in private universities (Gudo, Alel, & Oanda, 2011;Cheboi, 2006). Oversize classes, serious congestion due to limited learning facilities, reliance on part time lecturers who are only available for lecturers, excess workload for permanent lecturers leaving limited time for student consultations and guidance continues to be a cause of worry.
The time set aside by students for different activities that contribute to entire learning process were distributed as indicated in Table 3. Students in public universities were found to spend fewer hours weekly in both lectures (9.8) and co-curricular activities (7) as compared to students in private universities who spent 12 and 7.5 hours respectively. On independent study students in public universities spend more hours (14.2) hours weekly compared to 12.5 hours of their counterparts in private universities. Students at tertiary levels are expected to do more learning on their own than at lower learning levels. Public universities lead in this area.
Presence of entrepreneurial environment in universities, received mean rating of 2.84 with standard deviation of 1.002 and 3.06 with standard deviation of 0.876 for public and private universities respectively. Comparatively, students in private universities were more exposed to an entrepreneurial supportive environment than their counterparts in public universities but Overally, across universities the rating is average. Depth of approach to study take two forms: surface approach where students and a functioning quality assurance department received overall mean rating of 3.5 with standard deviation of 0.851 and 3.31 with standard deviation of 0.798 for Public and private universities respectively. Based on mean scores, quality enhancement processes were better in public as compared to private. Notwithstanding these findings, quality of education in public universities is generally believed to be relatively low as compared to private universities suggesting that public universities may be focusing on quality systems and not the end product or service itself (Magutu (2010).

Exploratory Factor Analysis
In determining the underlying latent elements on which the students assed the capacity of university education to inculcate entrepreneurial culture Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with Varimax (orthogonal) rotation was employed. As a prerequisite to factor analysis, two tests were done: Sample adequacy using Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure -a score of 0.793 was obtained which is greater than the minimum acceptable index of 0.6 (Tabachnick & Fidell (2007) and Bartlett's Test of Sphericitycomputed chi square value of 16335.74(P < .05) was obtained. Both confirmed suitability of factor analysis in determining the underlying constructs.
From the initial sixty-seven questions measuring the capacity of university education to inculcate in graduates' entrepreneurial culture, nine factors were extracted explaining 57.7% of the total variance for the entire set of variables with minimum communalities of 43%. Fifteen items did not load on any of the extracted components and were subsequently removed from further analysis.
Three items measuring student staff ratio loaded on component one (1) explaining 3.53% of the total variations and was interpreted as a lecturer-students interaction. Among the five items set out to measure the hours that students spent in learning and co curriculum activities, all except one loaded on component two (2) explaining 3.64% of the total explained variances and was interpreted as study hours while Encouraging students to pursue business ideas, provision of information on venture capital sources and integration of entrepreneurship courses in all academic programs loaded on component (3) Explaining 4.449% of the total variances and was interpreted as entrepreneurship environment. Seven items loaded on component four (4) explaining 8.39% of the total variances and was interpreted as challenging curriculum.
Nine Items measuring depth of approach to study loaded on component (5) and was labelled depth of approach to study explaining 6.554% of the total variances. Out of the eleven items measuring students' engagement, seven loaded on component (6) explaining 10.08% of the total variance and was renamed student engagement.
All the seven items measuring students' formative assessment and feedback loaded on a single component explaining 7.344% of the variances and was named formative assessment and feedback. Of all items measuring support services, six loading on a single component labelled student support services explaining 6.893% of the total variances. Quality enhancement processes had six items. Only one item: student evaluation of their lecturers at the end of every semester did not load on any item, leaving the remaining five item as significant measures explaining 6.821% of the total variations.

Results of Binary Logistic regression Analysis
Treating Graduate's decision to venture into entrepreneurship or joining formal employment as two mutually exclusive decisions, a binary logistic regression estimation model was found suitable. The suitability of the binary regression models was tested  Hours, Challenging Curriculum, Depth of Approach to study and Quality Enhancement processes were factors found not to be significant in predicting student's entrepreneurial culture as their p-values are greater than 0.05.

Hypothesis Testing
Omnibus Tests of Model Coefficients was used to test the null hypothesis, holding that university education in Kenya has no significant propensity to inculcate entrepreneurial culture on its graduates. As seen in Table 4 the omnibus Chi square test value was highly significant (chi-square = 130.53, df = 10, p <.000) an indication that the nine dimensions of quality were significantly influencing the entrepreneurial culture of students in both private and public universities. With the test p values of less than 0.05, the study's levels of significance, the null hypothesis that University education in Kenya has no significant Propensity to inculcate entrepreneurial culture in graduates was therefore rejected and a conclusion that university education in Kenya was empowering its graduates with an entrepreneurial culture and sends them out as job creators and not job seekers.
The findings can be an indication of the coming into fruition of government policy intentions on producing graduates who are job creators rather than job seekers.
However, finding presented in the British Council (2016) indicates that most secondary students aspired to self-employment rather than formal sector wage employment even before starting their university education, placing a caution on reaching a full conclusion on the ability of the university education to inculcate entrepreneurial culture on its graduates.

Conclusions
Out of the nine quality dimensions measuring the quality and relevance of the university education, only four dimensions were found to significantly influence graduate's entrepreneurial orientation. They are entrepreneurial environment, student support services, formative assessment and feedback and student engagement Evidence from the current study on the entrepreneurial orientation show that Kenyan graduates are still inclined towards formal employment. Despite integration of entrepreneurship courses in academic programs, Kenyan graduates are still indifferent to the two options of formal employment or entrepreneurship. The results of this study corroborate that of Akwuegu & Nwi-ue (2016) who found that in Nigeria, the capacity of Universities to develop entrepreneurship culture among students was significantly low.

Policy Recommendations
The entrenched mindset where students pursue university education as a means to securing a white-collar job, calls for changes not only in the curriculum, but also the establishment of a strong entrepreneurial environment and support systems within the universities where students can nature their entrepreneurial ideas. Universities need to make entrepreneurship more practical oriented by setting up incubational centres, linking students with providers of venture capital, market linkages, and industry mentorships for student ideas. This will go a long way in building an entrepreneurial mindset among graduates from Kenya universities.