Fellas, are you aware that Arap Ruto graduated with an actual PhD yesterday?
That would have been the main news of the day. But maybe (strong emphasis on maybe) the release of KCSE was timed to steal the thunder from him. You know very well that KCSE marking ended on (Monday?). Then the release of the results was (maybe) postponed, to ensure it coincided with Friday, to steal the thunder from Ruto’s PhD.
For ignoramuses here: what Ruto got was not one of those honorary degrees that are dished out to anyone with a shiny suit. This is an earned PhD.
Disclaimer: I am a conspiracy theorist.
Ruto is the first Kenyan to earn a PhD in Botany(plant ecology). His thesis was about how plants at Saiwa swamp are feasted upon by animals. He documented how the plants regenerate after being fed on and how the animals fight for them like bulls fighting for females. He documented the species of the animals, how often they visited the swamp, and how fat they became. He postulated on the nutritional value of the plants and why the animals love them. He described the species, genus, family, order, class,and phyla of the plants involved.
Lastly but not least, he described how he often visited the swamp by chopper. In his acknowledgement, he thanked his assistants for writing his thesis as he attended to matters of state. As such, he deserved to be the front news in all newspapers today.
A slow person wouldn’t get the sarcasm. But still, it takes some effort to get a PhD from the UoN, assistants or no assistants. You have to do some reading – if only for the oral presentation, which is done in public.
Saltiness detected! …It doesn’t cost a thing to appreciate another person’s remarkable achievement . Earning a doctorate degree, esp from the UoN is no mean feat.
A earned PhD is not pre-Matiangi KCPE or KCSE where guys had perfected ways of beating the system, in this journey you must not only grasp content but prove it before a multi-disciplinary panel of professors… if the work is not original you will be busted during the tried & tested thesis defence sessions/seminars.
Those of us familiar with the long & convulated process of earning a Phd degree can only say Hongera Dr Ruto. It is an encouragement to us the 8 -5 guys that our jobs must not curtail us from attaining our goals.
I was only responding to the post and the ktalker.
Now to you, for you to say that you need to prove before a multidisciplinary panel shows you dont know what you are saying. Basically, what you are telling us is that a mathematics professor can and is usually an opponent to a candidate defending his or her thesis on ‘The Ethnography of the Agikuyu People of Kenya’. You sir, stop imagining things
Kenyans usually lose the point completely. Being awarded a PhD is a sign that you are qualified to push the envelope in that particular field of study, and that you should be ready to devote a significant amount of the rest of your time doing so.
And this nonsense of ‘it takes some effort to get a PhD from the UoN’, should not be repeated in this village. I say this as an alumni. There is nothing special about UoN and its production(not graduates) is almost nothing. It has maintained colonial educational structures, precolonial courses and a vertical organisational structure that have no place in this age. With its libraries populated with donated 1920s books, dated hard cover journals, stinking toilets and dilapidated buildings from inside, it take really low standards to think that it is a top notch university.
Secondly, PhD is not a structured thing the way it is in masters or undergrad. Therefore, it does not matter where you do your PhD.
ni sawa UoN ni meffi hakuna aliye kataa. But despite all that wewe mwenyewe uko na PHD?
Hata kama ni ya Burkina Faso University ama Nepal Polytechnic, uko na PHD?
You know sometimes it’s good to set politics aside. I personally don’t always agree with Jubilee but Ruto has inspired me and many others to want to go back to school tumalize kabisa hadi mwisho kama yeye. Juu amejaribu sana.
And most important of all was to see his mother there very proud and happy that she didn’t struggle for nothing, she finally has a Doctor in her household. Hizi vitu ni important kwa mzazi.