In Kenya, if you get an A's (straight) in KCSE you go to a high powered uni course (eng, arch, med, etc). The A minuses and B's end up in BCom, Law, B.Ed etc. The C's end up in mid-level colleges (TTC, KMTC etc). The D's and E's are sort of left to whatever devices they can get their hands on: touts, policemen, hawking, farming, KYM etc. This is based on a segmented Gaussian distribution - with the exceptional outliers in each (sub-population)
Assuming KCSE performance (minus drilling) is a good indicator of intellect, is it surprising the quality of cops/touts/KYM that we have???
As far as the other cadres are concerned, I think that the introduction of parallel degree programmes means that university papers dont present the accurate picture of ability (both skill and intellect). Eg UoN med sch 2008 had approx 350 graduands and only 150 were regular. Hao wengine were 'able' to pay Kshs 500000 p.a.!! Halafu sasa tunasikia madaktari are half-baked