our roots

Recommendations

Info

Developments in the School of Business and eConomics By Evans Amata In the wake of globalisation, business organisations have found themselves competing not only with their traditional competitors, but with the best the global market can offer. The world has become one market where only the best will survive and the unfit will eventually resign to their fate. “Business sustainability” is becoming the key word in the 21st century business. Successful businesses are those which innovate and recruit workers with suitable skills. Employers are, therefore, looking for more than a qualified graduate from the university. Realising this challenge, Daystar University, School of Business and Economics has deliberately aligned its programmes to address business sustainability. This in part underlines the need for suitable and highly skilled personnel who bring in the knowledge required to sustain a business. The School of Business and Economics commits to equip business servant leaders for Africa and beyond with world-class business education. It aims at contributing to the advancement of governance, justice, leadership and economic development through developing and increasing knowledge and skills. Its programmes are designed to prepare students for the needs of a changing business environment and participation in the global economy. The School together with Nottingham University Business School are jointly organising an international conference to be held from 26th to 28th August 2015 on the theme Business sustainability in the 21st century. This conference will bring together business leaders and academicians to deliberate on how businesses can be sustainable in the 21st century. Besides the conference, the school has in the past exposed students to global businesses and markets through international trips, which have enabled students gain immense knowledge about what is happening in the world as well as positioning them favourably for the international labour market. This year, the school has organized a trip to Singapore, China and Dubai. The school continues to play its part in developing market-driven programmes to meet the growing need for specific skills in the nation. The shift in the economic and governance policies ranging from the implementation of the vision 2030, to the integration of the East African states, and the devolved system of government has challenged academic institutions to train more researchers, planners and policy analysts to be used at regional, national and county levels. To address this need, the School of Business and Economics has developed an MSc Economics degree programme to be launched in July 2015. This programme is designed to address the specific needs of the economy. The programme will be the first postgraduate programme in economics to be offered by a private university. The school has also developed for possible launch in January 2016 a curriculum for a Bachelor of laws (LLB) degree programme. Finally in keeping abreast with technology and in order to provide learning opportunities to the ever increasing number of students qualifying for university education, the School of Business and Economics plans to roll out an e-learning MBA programme in August 2015. This programme will cater for students who wish to pursue their education without physically attending classes due to their location, nature of work and busy schedule. 24 • DaystarConnect 2015
Factors affecting scholarly activity for academic staff in Kenya By Brenda Wambua and Clayton Peel The life of an academic in Kenya can be compared to a match stick in a box full of matches: much potential, and the hope that soon it will flame – but with so little room to manoeuvre until the flaming. Even so, the flaming match stick will itself burn out –washed out, regressed under a deluge of work. In institutions of higher learning in Kenya, that is universities, academic staff (whether Tutorial fellows or professors) are required to take part in academic activity. Academic activity involves research, writing papers for conferences and presenting them, publishing either original or reviewed articles in peer reviewed journals, publishing books or chapters in textbooks, participating in colloquia, just to mention a few. All these activities contribute to new knowledge and implementation of fresh ideas in the teaching strategies. Academic staff are expected to indulge in all these activities over and above their class work: actual class interaction with students, class preparation, setting of examinations, assignments and continuous assessment tests, administering the exams, marking and processing of grades, mentoring, supervising theses, as well as administrative duties. With the advent f technology, the dynamics of teaching have changed. In order to keep abreast with the latest developments in teaching, lecturers have to incorporate technology into their teaching. Basic presentation skills such as the use of power point slides make teaching much easier, both to the students and to the lecturer. The use of online teaching platforms such as moodle, blackboard, google + and the like, make teaching interesting and interactive. The innovation of smartphones has brought the classroom to the students’ palm meaning that learning can go on far beyond the confines of a classroom and for 24 hours a day. It is flexible and adaptable to differentiated learning. However, in as much as this may sound interesting and like it is the way to go for every lecturer, a few challenges emerge. In the first place, not every lecturer is techsavvy so a lot of time has to be spent in learning the ropes of using technology in the classroom. It takes much longer for those who do not have the interest. I know of universities in Kenya where each and every lecturer has to use an online teaching platform. Now, the time spent uploading learning material, as some argue, could have been spent writing an article for this journal or for that conference. I am not in any way implying that using technology is a waste of time. No! The point I am making is that it takes quite some good chunk of tome to learn how to use technology in the classroom. However, once one learns how to go about it, it becomes the easiest way to reach out to the students and it exposes students to new, authentic and meaningful learning experiences. Secondly, there has been a lot of talk from the Education Cabinet Secretary, Prof. Jacob Kaimenyi, about technology interfering with learning, the learning of languages especially. What he forgets is that use f technology adequately prepares students to meet the demands of the 21st century. The negative overtures discourage academic staff from trying new methods of teaching and academic activity is crippled to a great extent. What do I mean? The use of technology in the classroom is innovation and academic activity is about creativity, liberation and transformation. With the entry of technology into education, education is no longer about grades and academic certificates. In most universities, both private and public, there is a specific number of hours that a lecturer must teach within an academic year. This constitutes the lecturer’s workload. It could be six hours, eight hours or even twelve hours. In addition to these hours, there is administrative work which takes quite a toll on the academic staff’s time. By the end of a week of attending to the said tasks, the lecturer is too exhausted to think of conference papers or book chapters. The concept of ‘moonlighting’ is not new among university academic staff in Kenya. This is the practice of teaching part time classes, especially evening classes, in different universities. Most lecturers indulge in this practice in spite of holding a full time job. One may ask, why do three jobs at a time and still claim to have no time to publish? It is paradoxical, I know. Here we are talking about remuneration. Taking three or two jobs is a way of making ends meet. If the lecturer’’ salary was enough to bring the ends closer (if not together), it would be much easier for him or her to do research and attend conferences. Suffice it to say, in spite of the challenges faced above, some lecturers still go ahead and write conference papers and submit. Then in comes the ‘elephant in the room’: funding. These are cases where academic staff have missed conferences because they could not get an air ticket, or simply the conference fees. The same monster rears its ugly head when it comes to furthering studies. Scholarships in Kenya are few and far in between. Remember the remuneration challenge? Now, couple that with self sponsored studies! In other cases, the creative mind of a lecturer will design a rather viable, interesting and attractive project but the absence of funding pours cold water on it. The resulting product will be an overworked and demotivated academic staff. However, academic staff in Kenya are a resilient lot! The challenges notwithstanding, they still publish, innovate new strategies of teaching, further their studies, implement new and incorporate new ideas into their teaching and daily improve themselves. Greater innovation and creativity would be unearthed though, if the issues raised here and others were addressed. DaystarConnect 2015 • 25
Page 1 and 2: Daystar University June 2015 Tracin
Page 3 and 4: STARS are made at Daystar ...be the
Page 5 and 6: What’sInside 14 15 16 17 The Hidd
Page 7 and 8: Managing Editor’s Note Congratula
Page 9 and 10: Message from the Vice-Chancellor Dr
Page 11 and 12: Message from the DVC Academic Affai
Page 13 and 14: 37 th GrADUATION GUEST OF HONOR Hon
Page 15 and 16: Young Pheko (left) and younger brot
Page 17 and 18: Dr. Pheko considers himself a messe
Page 19 and 20: By Fredrick Rotich An edition of Th
Page 21 and 22: management board. It was created wi
Page 23 and 24: development, as history has shown t
Page 25 and 26: ugh Does writing pay the bills? By
Page 27: Technical and Professional Communic
Page 31 and 32: Seeking in uisitive minds Other pro
Page 33 and 34: Dr. Sr. A. L. Lando Sr. Dr. Agnes L
Page 35 and 36: Rev. Dr. Peterson Mwangi Rev. Dr. P
Page 37 and 38: The kind of service you give will d
Page 39 and 40: ambassador and later on after finis
Page 41 and 42: How Daystar transformed me By Jamle
Page 43 and 44: emphasis on self-awareness and self
Page 45 and 46: Etiquette:- Cellphone Usage “...i
Page 47 and 48: consumer in Kenya. The list of appr
Page 49 and 50: Resource Mobilization Office Transf
Page 51 and 52: So what has Daystar done to protect
Page 53 and 54: Helping Students Make Right Choices
Page 55 and 56: venues, taught and presented papers
Page 57 and 58: Academic Exchange Program Experienc
Page 59 and 60: gym sessions. And these sessions sh
Page 61 and 62: DUAA 2062i You Are Never Alone By K
Page 63 and 64: the contest. This was the most impo
Page 65 and 66: The Power of an Internship By Charl
Page 67 and 68: On Bended Knees By Steve Nduto A wh
Page 69 and 70: Thank you!! Courtesy brings forth a
Page 71 and 72: award that was given to the Basketb
Page 73 and 74: eminisces how he felt intimidated b
Page 75 and 76: DaystarConnect 2015 • lxxi

our roots

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?