My Most Read Articles of 2021
I recently shared my best films of 2021 and as a writer, I thought it was also important to highlight some of my best read articles of the year. Writing is fulfilling and nourishing, but it can also be demanding and excruciatingly difficult. I write not because I know, but because I seek to clarify my understanding of certain topics that I have developed an interest in. I also write as a way to answer questions that continuously get asked, most of which I’ve gotten tired of answering every time they’re brought up. Follow the links to read the full articles.
My most read article this year delved deep on the evidence for Kenya’s average IQ. Intelligence is an interesting concept that defines most of the group differences in human societies. In this article, I show how studies conducted in Nakuru, Kisumu, Embu, Nairobi, and Lamu average Kenya’s national intelligence at 75.20.
Interestingly, the second most-read article was a list of African countries by IQ. Sub-Saharan Africa averages an IQ of 68.9 even though there is some variation from country to country. Many people may ask why a list of African countries by IQ is important. The answer is simple; the wealth of nations can partly be attributed to differences in IQ. Intelligence is one of the defining aspects of human capital. The ability to learn, solve problems, navigate complexity, and provide meaningful and productive labor is important for any nation that seeks to grow and develop. People who have low intelligence can only be confined to rudimentary tasks, most of which are quickly running out in modern technological societies with elevated levels of complexity.
Many people define human capital based on levels of education and skill. However, education itself or the ability to acquire certain skills is a proxy for an individual’s intelligence. In Africa, however, education faces serious challenges, most of which were highlighted in my third most-read article. The learning crisis in Africa is an article that shows how African children attending schools finish without having learnt anything. Many students cannot add or subtract two digit numbers even after several years of school. For Africa, this implies two things; one is that using education to measure our human capital is erroneous. We can have many degrees and many students enrolling for higher education. However, if these credentials do not translate to higher literacy and numeracy skills, then we are cooked. For example, a recent phenomenon with Kenyan nurses revealed that most of them with undergraduate degrees could not pass a simple English literacy test. It raises the question; what are the results of the 12 years of education that go into teaching English in Kenyan schools? Another implication is that, if lower intelligence is behind the lower literacy and numeracy skills among Africans, then inadequate human capital becomes a sufficient reason for a poor prognosis on the future of Africa.
My fifth widely read article suggests that students cannot read and write after years of education partly because their teachers are just as incompetent. This statement opens a can of worms as well as a vicious cycle. Many African teachers cannot subtract double digit numbers let a lone evaluate students and design lesson plans. It also makes it clear that most African students can’t read or write because their teachers can’t read or write either. What explains this phenomenon? It can be argued that these teachers cannot read because they were taught by teachers who could not read and that the same cycle of incompetence keeps repeating itself with every generation of students.
Generally speaking, most education systems in Africa are grounded on incompetence and it is unlikely they’ll be rehabilitated soon. I also believe this should be a caution to anybody who believes that Africa can make similar numbers in economic growth and technological development as the Asian giants, Europe, and America. Despite having a lower average IQ than these countries, our education systems which should at least serve the purpose of correcting that error to some degree, are equally dysfunctional. Africans who define human capital based on education alone miss a lot in terms of low literacy and numeracy as mediated by poor education and even low intelligence. I know there are other factors of production other than capital. However, we can all agree that these other factors only become viable because of skilled human manipulation. I have also written on cognitive capitalism and how intelligent human capital is the source of the wealth of nations.
Another of my most-read articles touches on the tendency for Africans to compare African countries with other wealthier nations for validation. In arguments from analogy and dissimilar countries, I discuss why it’s perilous to model Africa’s economic growth based on what other industrialized countries have done or are doing. Many people ignore demographics, geography, country size, and many other variables when comparing two nations. For example, many people love comparing Kenya to Singapore when evaluating the economic trajectories of both nations in the last half a century. However, there are many differences between these two nations, and the different economic trajectories can be attributed to any of them.
Similarly, in a different article that enjoyed wide readership I discuss how Africa remains poor because of the tendency to blame other countries, especially Europe, for its misfortunes. I wrote on the future of Africa and its external locus of control that, our tendency to blame all our misfortunes on outsiders is one of the reasons we never develop. An individual’s locus of control determines whether they become successful or not. For countries, continuous nagging and complaining almost never ends well. Colonialism cannot be swept under the carpet, but it cannot remain the only talking point for African disenfranchisement forever.
Those were my most read articles of the year. I intend to remain dedicated to writing in 2022 hoping they’ll be a lot to learn and write about. There is still more that can be said on intelligence and human capital in Africa, and I intend to uncover most of those things. I hope Covid-19 will also come to an end, or at least, African governments will stop making a fuss of it. As I have written here, Covid-19 in Africa has not been as detrimental as many commentators expected. Requiring vaccine passports and instituting mandates is more harmful to African economies than Covid-19 itself. Thank you for coming this far, happy new year.
