My first dream of higher education envisioned the University of Nairobi, simply because it was the most talked about university of my childhood. When my eyes later opened to the realities of scholarship, I loved Kenyatta University, I wanted to study there, and now, I am there. Dream comes true!
The television commercials made it attractive, the graduation broadcast live on television made it highly academic, its rugby club competing in the national league gave it an all-round transformative look, and its famous Amphitheatre events gave it a class of its own, let alone the America’s No. 1’s visit.
Walk into Kenyatta University’s and meet the real deal of goodies. A first-world view of clean-paint mini-skyscrapers rising into the horizon will be your first amazement. If you came at 11.58 am, the campanile bell would knock 5 times at your awe in the top of the hour. Standing against you would be the most visited building in the whole of Nairobi East – the Postmodern Library (PML).
The headquarters of the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) will be stunningly staring from your left, with the almost-pure-glass-exterior Central Administration Complex intimidating on your right. Did I mention the magnificent gate?
Writing a short article about Kenyatta University would be the biggest punishment in the literary world. My words are running two fifty and I have not mentioned: Confucius institute, KU TV and Radio, arboretum, camp site, KUCC, and all that cohort. The other isolated side is still under complete dark – the Nyayo Zone – including the almost finished state-of-the-art Teaching and Referral Hospital.
If KU didn’t make it to the list of best universities in Africa, we would have to find Plato to tell us what he envisioned a university for.
However, with all these infrastructure and manifestations of art, several things make the primary subject of all activities of the institution – the students – uncomfortable. Perfection is unrealistic and unattainable, but excellence is easily caught in pursuit for it.
From the student’s standpoint, we need to discuss ways to make our institution greater for learning and transformation.
