This Four-fold Category Developed by a Young Kenyan Doctor to Define Campus Students is the Best One Yet
By the time you are done, you will know where you lie
Inno, there are four different types of students.
That’s how he started.
Only four?
I wondered.
It must have been lunchtime. The details are hazy. When you’re hungry, details whizz past you.
But I needed to know more.
Enhe…
I nudged him. To date, I have never forgotten what he told me.
That is the hallmark of a good storyteller.
Here’s the weird story we share
We started writing blogs when we were on campus.
I would read his stories and he would read mine. We even attended the first sessions of the Writers Guild Kenya meetings before it rose to fame.
I was tall. He was short.
But never short of talent.
I played football and basketball. He played badminton.
And we loved reading books. We loved stories.
In particular, I remember this one afternoon story because it is the best summary of campus students I have ever encountered. At least, in the Kenyan setting.
In this short article, I talk about the brilliance of Kimathi Makini.
Kimathi, like me, went to a school surrounded by sugarcane plantations. This only means we had our high school education in rich lands.
Yes, we went to the same high school. I was in East. He was in West. He was the environment captain. I was in charge of entertainment.
From these fertile soils, a genius idea was forged. Kim formulated the types of students on any and all campuses.
Here’s a short intro to get the idea.
It’s important to know that these categories apply to undergraduate students. If you have done your masters, then you can tell us if it applies to graduate studies.
There are only two modules in Kenyan Public Universities
The Kenyan university system has two modules.
Module 1 and Module 2.
Module 1 students are government-sponsored.
They met the cut-off points to be funded for the course they selected to study for four or more years. Four might be a theoretical number if you are at the University of Nairobi. In reality, you will spend more.
Module 2 students are self-sponsored.
They are smart, but for one reason or another, they did not attract the interest of the government. If you wanted to do engineering but were a point short, you may opt for this option. Alternatively, if you are not from a Kenyan system of education, this is your only option.
These are the only modules.
But our friend from the fertile hills used his combinatorial logic to identify four types of students.
You see, module one students are sponsored by a board — the Joint Admissions Board. In short, JAB.
If you are a JAB student, you are government-sponsored.
Most of these students apply for Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) loans because the sponsorship is partial. It’s the government’s solution to educate the public and plunge a fraction of them into debt.
The other students, module two students, are parallel students. Or PARA in short.
PARA students drive cars and have lunch in restaurants that JAB students can only dream of, from afar.
Lucky for us, the university offers a rich environment for people to interact. It is not like these two categories of students isolate themselves. Some do, though, but not all of them.
Now you’re up to speed: There are PARA and JAB students.
But our young doctor was not satisfied with this two-fold category — so he developed his
I have never discovered a better description of students from any other, than the one this doctor developed.
And it is simple.
I will finish with the one where we — he and I — identified as.
1. PARA-PARA
These are clearly module 2 students.
You will never see them in the students’ hall area. They will never go with you to the mess. They either carry packed lunch or drive to their preferred restaurant.
Sparking a conversation with them might be daunting, but some achieve it. Sustaining it, however, might be difficult.
The funny thing is, PARA-PARA students don’t know they are PARA-PARA. Why? Because the one who developed this idea was not a PARA-PARA student.
Also, he did not tell a PARA-PARA student. He told me.
So both of us were not PARA-PARA students.
2. PARA-JAB
These are students whose way of life defies their self-sponsored campus education.
They will spend a good amount of time with the JAB students in the halls, eat with them in the mess, and even fight for school transport with some of the module one students.
Unless you ask, you will never know they are module two. You might also not know until you look at their admission numbers.
To them, PARA was just a name. An unknown label.
They are fun people to hang around.
3. JAB-PARA
These are the people who surprise most module 1 students.
Why?
Because they do not apply for HELB like the rest of the module 1 folks. They do not walk for long distances just because there’s no school transport taking them from one campus to the next. They drive themselves or are driven.
And you cannot tell they are JAB-PARA students because their lives are like those of PARA-PARA students.
As JAB-PARA students, they can fit anywhere without missing out or feeling like they are in the wrong crowd.
4. JAB-JAB
This is where our genius doctor and myself fit in.
We’d make sure we are early to the mess to get food not riddled with pebbles. It would at least have a hint of food oil in it. Most times we were unlucky.
Pebbles were a staple food.
We’d also find ways of sneaking some of the mess utensils into our rooms. In our defense, we were young. Period.
Occasionally, we — not me — would exile or get exiled because our roommate brought their ‘special’ person for the night or for the hour.
JAB-JAB students — us, basically — would walk or if it’s a couple of weeks after HELB’s boom, contribute among ourselves to get a UBER to school or the community study center.
These are the kind of students who know the difference between a true blackout and if everybody was cooking at the same time in the student halls.
They would know the dual role of a woofer in one’s room.
They would even know how hard it is to kill micro-comrades.
If you know what a micro-comrade is, then odds are you might be or was a JAB-JAB student. Or a PARA-JAB student.
Now, tell me there’s a better category of students than this one.
I’ll wait.
Until Kimathi Makini’s idea remains the best I have ever heard of.
By now you should know where you lie.
PS: I had an amazing class, despite these categories. Those guys were the best. I have never seen a more cohesive class than that one.
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