I read Prof Egara Kabaji’s article titled “Don’t just focus on STEM, content production is the real goldmine” with muffled amusement and unequivocal disapproval.
The good professor, who taught and mentored me during my undergraduate years at Masinde Muliro University, and whose intellectual acumen and scholarly exploits I am deeply enamoured of, made an outlandish claim that theatre and film, primed to be taught to our senior secondary students, could lift Kenya out of poverty. This assertion, backed by weak arguments with hardly any credible data, statistics or research findings, cannot go unchallenged.
Prof Kabaji starts by listing the State of California in the US, India and Nigeria as “powerful lessons for the economic strength of creative industries,” referencing Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood, the appellations for their respective film industries.
Whereas he does not provide any data that indicates the precise contribution of these industries to their respective economies, he also seems to overlook the anchor factors upon which the massive economic output of these regions is predicated.
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Nigeria’s economic growth is overwhelmingly a function of its oil and gas exports, telecoms and agriculture. Not Nollywood as such. India’s exponential economic growth was informed by a vibrant IT sector, agriculture, service and manufacturing. Not necessarily Bollywood. The State of California became America’s richest state due to a multiplicity of factors – tech (Silicon Valley), agriculture (Central Valley), finance, biotech and trade and not necessarily because of Hollywood.
This scrutiny, this revelation, severely dents the veracity of his arguments on just how much premium should be placed on theatre and film, and the notion that they have the capacity to lift Kenya from endemic poverty.
Whilst I agree with Prof Kabaji that Kenya’s film industry has “under-performed” and remains “stunted,” I disagree with him that merely introducing theatre and film in the new curriculum will do much to improve this state of affairs. Hasn’t music been a subject in the previous curriculum? How much did that do to improve our music scene? Heck, did it even help in helping us curate a music identity, let alone professionalising the trade and affording a decent life for most talented musicians?
The problem with our creative industry is multifaced – partly the legal framework, partly organisational, partly cultural proclivity to consume foreign, and cut corners with the local through piracy. This is a whole different conversation. Prof Kabaji is misdiagnosing the problem if he thinks merely introducing this discipline in the curriculum will suddenly have huge economic returns in the way of creating jobs and ramping up economic activity.
None of Kenya’s peers from the last century focused their education on performing arts and realised the so-called economic miracle. The hard truth is that STEM prepares the labour force of any economy better than the performing arts ever could. STEM, not Theatre and Film, or any other performing arts for that matter, can lift Kenya from poverty. The latter can only play an ancillary role in economic growth.
Examples abound, from the so-called Asian tigers, on what really matters when it comes to turbo-charging an economy. South Korea, for instance, positioned itself as a major player in the global semiconductor market. It is currently the world’s fourth largest producer of patents, northwards of 60 per cent of those being RIT-related
Needless to say, it is one of the leading countries, globally, in IT R&D. It is a country of ‘fundis’, so to speak. Today, they can showcase their prosperity to the world through K-POP. We mustn’t get it twisted. The cart cannot come before the horse.
India, today, boasts of an ever-growing number of software developers, according to Tim Cook, the Apple CEO. Which is why tech companies are trooping to India to set up shop or expand operations. They know they will exploit the readily available, well-trained labour – a critical factor in production.
Enough has been said about China, which lifted millions of people from abject poverty in just a few decades. They did not do so through telling their stories, as the good Prof would like us to believe. They did so strategically and painstakingly – manufacturing, technological innovation, and reverse engineering. Today, they go toe to toe with the Americans, giving them a run for their money, literally, if the OpenAI vs Deep Seek race is anything to go by.
Prof Kabaji makes a curious and bold claim about STEM graduates being among the “most unemployed”. He does not furnish us with any data on this, though. He says this has been occasioned by “exporting the very jobs they were meant to take to China and elsewhere.” Even without any data on this, let’s assume Prof is right, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, and put this into perspective. If this is the logic, aren’t we still exporting jobs in the film industry by consuming foreign content from Hollywood, Bollywood, Nollywood and elsewhere? If indeed we are exporting STEM jobs, is the solution to throw our hands in the air in resignation and opt for easy solutions to complex problems? How defeatist! I wonder if this is the thinking, in some quarters in the MOE, that toyed with the idea of making mathematics optional in our schools, a proposition I found to be ludicrous, at best.
The long and short of it is this: To export your stories and films, you first need to be noticed and revered. Only then will the world want to listen to you, to ‘check you out’. Besides, there is no pride, really, or even economic comparative advantage if you produce content using net imported gadgets, equipment and even technology. We must have a skin in the game, at least, even if for pride’s sake, if not for nothing else.
So, whereas Theatre and Film are important disciplines that would no doubt add immense value to our Nation Branding and create employment opportunities, they shouldn’t be mistaken for being our way out of poverty. STEM remains the panacea to our economic challenges. Yes, we shouldn’t tie our economic dreams to oil and minerals, partly due to the so-called Dutch Disease, but we shouldn’t tie them to TikTok and REELS either. Or YouTube videos.
The government should invest in RD&D – Research, Development and Demonstration, train enough STEM teachers and compensate them decently, build modern laboratories and ICT hubs, increase internet reach, sort out the bureaucratic red tape and business licensing regime, offer tax breaks and incentives to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) – in areas of ICT, and ensure we have a world class labor force to meet the needs of such industries. Quality, well-paying jobs will be created as a result. Our economy will roar to life! STEM is the way to go.
Antoney Luvinzu is an IB Educator and a budding Political Economist, currently pursuing graduate studies in Politics and Policy at Deakin University, Australia.
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By Antoney Luvinzu