Rethink Expansion Medical Courses Kenya

Cup pressure peaks as Shabana host Kenya Police in blockbuster quarter-final Football

Upper Hill coach Walgwe unperturbed despite drawing giants in Prescott Cup group phase Rugby

Kenya’s push to expand medical training is both timely and necessary. For years, the country has struggled with understaffed hospitals and limited access to healthcare, particularly in rural areas.

Increasing the number of trained professionals seems like the right solution. Simultaneously‚ an increasing gulf between training and actual work practice raises the spectre of sustainability and planning․

For instance, the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) has significantly scaled up enrolment and introduced new programmes. In 2024 alone, over 21,000 students graduated from KMTC. Furthermore‚ while this is a step forward for a skilled workforce‚ it points to the problem of graduate underemployment․

The nursing profession illustrates this crisis clearly. Thousands of trained nurses are unemployed‚ while hospitals claim there are shortages․ What explains this paradox is the lack of workforce planning and utilisation systems․ Educating more health professionals will not help if they cannot be absorbed․

This challenge reflects the challenge of youth employment more generally in Kenya․ Large numbers of the country's young people are unemployed or underemployed‚ and many of those employed are in informal jobs for which they are overqualified․ This is especially difficult for medical graduates. After years of specialised training, many are forced to take on unrelated jobs just to survive.

This is partly due to the rapid growth of the training system‚ often poorly aligned with the needs of the labour market‚ with new courses introduced with lower (or no) entry standards to increase access․ While this approach increases opportunities for education, it risks producing more graduates than the job market can absorb.

Research by the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) highlights a persistent “skills mismatch” in Kenya, where graduates’ qualifications do not align with available opportunities. This mismatch underscores the need for better planning and stronger links between education providers and employers.

It is important to note that Kenya does not necessarily have too many healthcare workers. In fact, the country still faces a shortage when compared to global standards. The real issue is misalignment between training, deployment and job creation. Without addressing this gap, increasing the number of graduates will not solve the problem.

To solve this, reform is urgently needed. The Ministry of Education, working closely with the Ministry of Health, must ensure that training programmes are aligned with actual healthcare needs. This includes regulating the introduction of new courses, maintaining high training standards and focusing on quality over quantity.

At the same time, there must be deliberate investment in job creation within the health sector. County governments should be supported to hire more healthcare workers, while innovative solutions such as public-private partnerships can help absorb graduates into meaningful roles.

Ultimately, education should lead to opportunity. Producing graduates without clear employment pathways risks creating a generation of skilled yet underutilised professionals. Kenya must move beyond simply increasing access to education and focus on ensuring that it translates into real impact.

Orthopaedic and trauma officer and ESD advocate