Op-ed

Students don’t turn out to vote

According to the Commission for University Education (2014), Kenya’s higher education sector has 52 universities, including 22 state-chartered universities,17 private chartered universities, and 13 institutions with intern authority. Aside from universities and polytechnics, the higher education system a variety of other institutions including government owned and operated teacher training colleges, scientific and technology institutes, medical schools, trade and agricultural schools which are all subsidized by the government. University governance often provides a means and platform for students to organize a governance structure that allows them to express their opinions and issues. Despite all these, the research from Commission for University Education confirms that recent student participation in an election has recorded a relatively low turnout.

The reasons for low turnout range from social, economic to political. Unsupportive political system is probably the biggest threat to youth participation in this modern-day politics. Research has found that students are more comfortable engaging in other forms of activism, which have become common occurrences in campuses rather than participating in elections. Students see these as a platform to express their anger and disgust with public sector corruption and poor service among other issues. Although, youth participation has waned over years, they remain socially and politically engaged through other means such as social media. They have remain actively engaged in various significant processes such as service delivery protests, community demonstration and protests on university campuses.

The students find political processes frustrating and alienating and less likely to yield desired results hence hindering their full, effective participation in electoral processes. Young people often feel disempowered by the same political actors empowering them. There is existence of mistrust between politicians and the younger generation, the young people generally place blame on the political system and see it as responsible for their misfortunes. “Why should I vote for people who don’t care about my well-being?”, you will often get that from young people.

The best way to get them to participate in the elections is by engaging future voters that is; hiring young poll managers, expanding the electorate, recruiting young people to help during elections this to them, will mean they are included, involved and wanted which would then cause action.

A better approach towards this would be to educate the youth in general through social media outline outreach that is; creating election hashtags, updating elections on websites. This is mainly because youth participation in online social platforms remains active. Political parties and electoral bodies must strive to create conditions that allow effective participation of all age groups in politics.

Low levels of political engagement don’t necessarily mean that students are completely disengaged from political and civic matters. The government has failed to give the students who are part of voters a reason to participate in an election. Also, it has failed to drive them to a common goal hence a low turnout during elections. The government should realize the country’s young population has lost faith in political systems and electoral processes and therefore call for an action.

Purity Mandu.