The Dilemma of the student burger

‘FOREIGN DEGREES VRS ‘LOCAL INTELLIGENCE’: THE DILEMMA OF THE STUDENT BURGER’. Part 1

When you have a university degree, the assumption is that you are at least above the average man, who thinks in inches and yards to measure window curtains at Kantamanto. The degree holder thinks in degrees: degrees of scholarship; degrees of analytical power; degrees of intellectual aptitude, which altogether would, all things being equal, guarantee a degree of comfort. But we know that many things are pretty unequal these days. Some degree holders are worse than the curtains in their windows. So they are actually concerned with the degree of their failure than the comfort they were promised.

Have you noticed how the adjective ‘prestigious’ has suddenly stopped itself from qualifying the noun ‘degree’? We don’t have prestigious degrees anymore: degrees these days are as affordable as village prostitutes during a farming season. Everybody has a degree or two, and sometimes three, so who’s is prestigious?

It is not unexpected that a blockhead like me can also boast of a couple of degrees. I had acquired two of them in Ghana before I applied to the British High Commission in Accra for a student visa, to study some more. At the interview, the entry clearance officer asked me why I needed a third degree when I hadn’t done any serious work with my present qualifications. I had prepared an answer before the interview, so I managed to convince him. The question did not make sense to me, until recently, when I discussed job opportunities in Ghana with the editor of a newspaper I used to write for.

I would confess that among several other things, the reason I traveled abroad was to decorate my CV with a foreign qualification. It is fashionable and of course, you have the added advantage of being called a burger when you return home. So I have succeeded in adding some UK acquired qualifications to my degree portfolio. As if unabashed by the frustration they are causing me, I am seriously trying for a PhD with the determination of a man with a low sperm count who is trying for twins.

At what cost have I attained the degrees, and how best have they served me so far? These are questions many Ghanaians studying abroad ask themselves daily. Let’s understand that there are times a degree ceases to be a qualification. A qualification is the visa that employers demand to hire the degree holder. The degree itself is a passport: it requires a visa. And like any visa, the employment visa runs out. So does the passport.

An average university in the UK puts the tuition fees for a year’s postgraduate course at some £9,000, about 161million cedis for international students. A three year undergraduate programme costs thrice as much. An MBA usually costs £12 to £15,000 in a university with a skeletal teaching staff. Of course an Oxford or Cambridge MBA could cost a student more than £25,000. Cranfield University charges £30,000 for its MBA. We haven’t talked of books, housing, feeding, telephone and maintenance costs. Being a student burger means that there are relatives and friends back home who need their share of the merciful pound. There are also funeral contributions and the monthly tithes for the Christians, who struggle to pay in the hope that God, will make all the sacrifice pay off in the end. Some students in London live on gari and shito daily, even though chicken is very cheap here. Some of the ladies are not able to sustain the natural growth of their hair, because they eat rice and agushi everyday throughout the year.

The life of the student burger is like a tragedy set in the graveyard. Very few of them have rich parents who pay for their fees and living expenses. 99.9% work full time, often overtime, to make ends meet. Very few of the ladies wear stockings and hair extensions. The men maintain one shaving machine for a year and do not care very much about the soles of their shoes. Those who have children forfeit their boxer shorts for baby pampers.

Most student burgers work in the night. The jobs differ. It ranges from polishing the teeth of horses at a stable to caring for a disabled septuagenarian who has to be fed and wiped after visiting the toilet. The VIP job is security. I have done one of these jobs, but I am not telling you. At least, I was not a thief. You work, dose and manage to study at the same time, under the watchful eye of a white supervisor who has no idea what an MBA stands for. After the shift in the morning, our student burger trots to catch a bus or train to lectures. He had had no shower so he did not change his underpants. The ladies manage with a scruffy hair and manicure is not necessary. So who cares about pedicure?

He doses through a three hour Organizational Behaviour lecture, but he manages to copy the assignment question. He returns home for an hour’s break and heads to work again, where he would try to write a 5,000 word essay. He sustains this pattern but fights to graduate with a proud MBA. What quality will this degree be? How did he do it?

Sincerely, I am proud of my Bachelor’s degree in English, which I took when Professor Benneh was Vice Chancellor at Legon than any of my foreign qualifications. The MBA presently offered at GIMPA is fantastic. An Oxford MBA would be better; otherwise GIMPA’s is as good, if not better than as any of those given by affiliated colleges housed in decrepit structures in London. There are too many cashiers at these colleges.

Research has shown that about 51% of students who study abroad return home. Most of them do find great jobs. At least my friend Botwe has found a great job that comes with everything except a wife. But he has a house girl. Well, who knows? I can’t tell whether his foreign degrees gave him any advantage over those with home brewed ones. The beauty of it all is, just as many charlatans manage to preach in church, bad and good degrees perfectly co-exist. Ultimately, employers are the ones who know best.

We have lived with the myth that foreign degrees holders are better trained those with local ones. Most employers in Africa and indeed, many of our political leaders were trained abroad. Why are we still a failing continent? Do they work with the foreign degrees or they rely on local brains? Do the holders of foreign degrees leave behind the spirit of the degrees and fly home with a hollow paper? May be, degrees; foreign or local do not matter. It is the individual and the commitment to selflessly deliver that matter.

What about the near 50% of foreigners who stay abroad after their studies? It is sometimes difficult to tell, because they blend in easily and drive good cars. They look like parliamentarians when they are driving to work. You would usually meet them at the receptions of organizations, gently seated as security officers. Well, they call themselves corporate observers. Some ladies drive posh cars to care homes, to cook for the insane.

But not everybody is observing; some of them are actually being observed. There is a Ghanaian parliamentarian here in London. I have also had the privilege of talking to a Ghanaian judge. A few of my friends, very few, are working with their brains, at least. They will instantly volunteer to let you know if they are doing decent jobs. The trick is that, when they don’t tell you, they are probably doing one of the unmentionables.

The sad part of the life of the student burger is, they are often turned down by western employers, because they have too many degrees but poor CVs. It is not unusual for somebody who had a degree in Economics and may be an MBA before he traveled abroad, to do an ACCA. He had originally come to do an MSc, so he does well to complete that too. That gives him four degrees. He still has no relevant experience, because he had not done a day’s job before he flew the hardships in his home country. Employers in the west do not want degrees; they want experienced people to do the job. Besides, they are too black for any serious position. So our student burger applies for 235 jobs and only one employer is polite enough to acknowledge his application.

A few are called for interview, so that the firm can in future prove that they are an equal opportunities employer. If you have a typical English name like Gareth Campbell-Jones or Zoe Barrymore, you are likely to be called for interview, provided your CV does not state your nationality. Once they see your black face, it is another story. There are also work permit problems, which will make those jobs untenable anyway, even if they had it.

But there is a consolation. A student burger with four degrees would be employed on contract basis, to occupy a position that requires only two A’ level passes. He is initially happy about it; at least it is a departure from the norm. Soon he realizes he is under-utilising his enormous capabilities. The frustration sets in. He has been abroad for five years so folks back home intensify their demands. He has not built a house yet.

As he continues to flip-flop between going home and staying in the cold, he is ageing past the employable age. Who wants a grandfather for a job? Employers are like pedophiles; they want fresh blood, not grey pubic hairs. Meanwhile his colleagues back home are developing sound careers and have already started their second house. He hasn’t saved enough, but time waits for no man, not even the black man. Out of frustration and sheer disgust, he damns the west and heads back to the west coast of sub-sahara Africa, to start all over again. If he has a myopic wife, who fancies raising children in Europe, so they will grow to speak English like the white man, it turns the home plan asunder. But a man is a man, so he damns the wife, damns McDonalds and damns the Queen. Home is home; you can’t go wrong. Ghana, here we come!