Bachelor’s degrees? Prof Magoha, just get rid of all of them please

Masinde Muliro of Science and Technology graduands during their 8th graduation ceremony on July 25, 2020 [Benjamin Sakwa, Standard]

I loved teaching. I think it is the most rewarding job in the world.

But there is a point at which one gets fed up of staying behind a noisy posho mill or squelching around in the mud to the work station because there isn’t a patch of tarmac in their neck of the woods.

So by training, I am supposed to be familiar with matters related to the Bachelor of Education degree.

Thus, when I read in the newspapers that my former employer (TSC) and Education boss Prof George Magoha want to do away with the Bachelor of Education degree, I said to myself, hmm, now that is an idea! Indeed, why not ban all bachelor’s degrees altogether?

In the traditional African setting, a bachelor is a most useless fellow. Cannot sit with elders. Cannot drink with elders.

Cannot chair a bride price or funeral committee meeting, measure out a grave or solve marital disputes.

Can’t even be named after. Why then is a university degree named after this good for nothing loser who can’t even put a woman in the house? 

Naming a degree “bachelor’s” is sexist and discriminatory, too. It discriminates against married people, polygamists, widows and widowers and women of every shade – spinsters in particular.

In this time and age when “Sir” in official correspondence and use of the possessive pronoun “their” in place of “his or hers” is frowned upon and words like chairman and spokesman have been discarded, the Hon Lady Chief Justice Martha Koome walking around with a bachelor’s degree in her handbag is preposterous.

What’s more, this bachelor’s thing is extremely unkind to people whose gender is neither black nor white to the extent that they are confused about whether to pee standing or seated.  

I say ban all these bachelor’s degrees and simply call them “His, Her or Their” degree in arts, science, medicine or whatever.