In everything I do, I think strategy

 

WAMUYU KAMBO is the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Administration, Planning and Development at Inoorero University. She is part of the brains that midwifed  the upgrading of Kenya School of Professional Studies into a full-fledged university. She spoke to HELLEN MISEDA

WAMUYU KAMBO is the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Administration, Planning and Development at Inoorero University

September 18, 2009, remains a special day for me. I was then the principal of Kenya School of Professional Studies (KSPS). On this cold morning, I sat and watched tensely together with fellow staff and directors as the Commissioner for Higher Education handed KSPS the letter of interim authority, upgrading it to Inoorero University (IU).

It was an emotional moment. We had worked so hard to meet the stringent requirements of transforming KSPS to Inoorero University, and watching it unfold before my eyes was such a happy moment. It remains a key highlight of my life.

There is one thing I believe about success; that it is not the strong who survive, but those who are able to embrace change.

The birth of IU was not a walk in the park and even today, as I sit as Inoorero’s Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of Administration, Planning and Development, there is still much to do to achieve IU’s vision of being a transformational university.

 I am in charge of IU’s strategic planning, finances and development, and this way I see myself as managing a business. If not interacting with the academics about learning issues, I am brushing shoulders with financiers, current and potential partners, and architects of the university’s new campus at Kiserian.

IU’s strategy is to be responsive to the market needs and to differentiate itself through a practical problem solving teaching approach, which embraces information, communication and technology (ICT), entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity. Students are challenged to be problem solvers.

TRANSFORMING MINDSETS

This is what the current knowledge society requires. Thinking like entrepreneurs stimulates creativity and innovation. If we don’t train graduates to create jobs we will keep complaining about unemployment.

Transforming mindsets is the biggest challenge.

Parents may wonder why they need to buy laptops for students; and not every member of staff will embrace the new teaching methodology.

While the change has been difficult given that people love living in comfort zones, it is critical that academia in Kenya moves away from traditional ways of doing things. Of course the people who chart the path get the scratches. But with IU’s effort, I am confident of a future where Kenya will have its own ‘Silicon Valley’ and youth will churn innovations from their campus dorms.

JOURNEY TO THE TOP

I trained at the Kenya Technical Teachers College as a teacher, and I also hold a Bachelor of Technology in Education Management from University of South Africa and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Lincolnshire UK (now Lincoln University).

I taught at Aga Khan High School before joining KSPS as a lecturer and later moved to the college’s executive education.

This is where my career turned around. Here I encountered the corporate world, and management and leadership excited me.

 I loved selling executive education programmes and also training, developing courses and working with a wide variety of consultants. That is how I grew to thinking strategy.

I was about to move to a job in a finance institution but KSPS convinced me to stay. And after my MBA studies I came back to become KSPS’s principal at a time when the college was poised to convert into a university.

KSPS was a business entity then, and we needed to come up with new ideas, products and strategies to give shareholders great value.

Today, I still serve the same role for KSPS Investments Ltd’s over 100 shareholders who are the owners of IU.

It will be a dream come true to actualise IU as it is on paper, and as envisaged by the people who came up with the dream of IU, I being one of them.

There is already pressure for quality graduates to meet current market demands, especially the globalised workplace. Challenges include finding the right manpower with appropriate skills to perform in a ‘knowledge society’.

The culture of innovation, research, critical thinking and problem solving, important for success in the 21st Century, is not well embedded in our education structure.

We concentrate too much on passing exams and examination results. We have been taught from a tender age that we go to school to learn, hence the tendency to sit and listen. We are not required to discover much or think on our own. And you find that at university level, it is hard to change this perception.

Only going to its third year, IU’s dreams might sound too ambitious, but I firmly believe that a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. 

In this era of technology smart phones, ipads and laptops play a big role in organising us. For instance, I am able to see my emails and respond to urgent ones even when attending meetings, on my smart phone.

Time management and delegation also play a key role, and so I coach and empower my assistants to be able to deliver even when I am not around. It is important to understand yourself and how you work best.