Just to do a quick hijack of a previous thread :).
I was recently involved in a project by the Aga Khan University, they were trying to get information on what they should include in their degree programs... One thing came out clearly, papers are a means to getting you through the door. I don't agree with those saying that for you to get a good job you need to grease... I know some of the most competent people in IT today have no uni papers, if you are really good at what you do, people will seek you out...
That being said, the main reason people look for graduates is because, as a result of university education, you have a minimum of linguistic and organizational skills (not always the case). Employers find themselves being forced to retrain graduates. Which begs the question, in Kenya, exactly what function do our degrees serve? I'm sure there are many here who studied degrees in Chemistry, Finance, Linguistics, Environmental science etc, but find themselves in IT... There are others who have engineering degrees in Finance... Evidently the baseline for the degree is how well you did, hence you use that as a baseline to estimate the work ethic... But again, what's the value of the degree, generally in the .ke market?