Kenya has kicked off plans to upgrade 15 colleges into fully fledged
universities as it seeks capacity to enrol at least 10,000 extra
students annually. The upgrade will more than triple the number of
public universities, from seven to 22.
In just over a month, President Mwai Kibaki has awarded charters to five
university colleges, allowing them to admit students and offer degree
programmes on their own. He is expected to award charters to another 10
colleges in the next month, before he leaves power.
Kenya goes to the polls on 4 March and Kibaki, who has served his two constitutional terms, will not stand for election.
Two years ago, most colleges were upgraded into university colleges
affiliated to Kenya’s seven public universities. Eight of the colleges
admitted 4,500 students in the 2012 intake.
On 31 January, in the latest upgrade, Kibaki awarded a charter to Pwani
University. In 2007, the institute was upgraded to Pwani University
College, as a constituent college of Kenyatta University, Kenya’s second
biggest university by student numbers after Nairobi.
A day earlier, he granted a charter to the Technical University of
Mombasa, formerly Mombasa Polytechnic. The institution was until
recently affiliated to Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and
Technology, or JKUAT.
In mid-January Kenya Polytechnic, a constituent college of the
University of Nairobi, was upgraded to the Technical University of
Kenya. Chuka University was formerly a constituent college of Egerton
University. And in December a former constituent college of JKUAT became
Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, in Nyeri.
Expanding enrolments
Kenya hopes that the new universities, though relatively deprived of
facilities, will help admit an additional 10, 000 students and thus ease
the country’s admission crisis.
The government has been looking for ways to clear a backlog of 40,000
would-be students – a pool that has grown since 1982 when universities
were closed because of strikes following a failed coup. The backlog
worsened during a countrywide university strike in protest against the
introduction of fees and a pay-as-you-eat programme in 1991.
The backlog has meant that students who qualify for degree courses
following the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams have to
wait for two years before they can be admitted to government-funded
programmes.
The number of school-leavers seeking university education has been
rising faster than universities have been able to expand infrastructure,
leading to strained facilities and compromised quality of learning.
Due to space constraints, more than half of the 118,256 eligible
students – 76,000 – missed out on a place at a public university in the
last intake (in mid-2012).
And with only 41,000 securing places in public universities, the balance
were forced to seek education in costly private universities, join the
equally expensive ‘parallel programmes’ – fee-charging courses in public
institutions – or enter tertiary colleges or youth polytechnics.
The creation of the 15 universities comes at a time when Kenya has begun
implementing far-reaching higher education reforms aimed at
streamlining and improving the management of university affairs. The
Universities Act 2012 came into effect last month.
Expanding while maintaining quality
The thinking behind the upgrade of colleges, educationists and
policy-makers said, was to increase the number of graduates while
ensuring they received marketable qualifications.
“Institutions of higher and tertiary education must strive to produce
the highest quality of graduates. They must continuously benchmark with
the best universities in their areas of specialisation, not only in
Kenya but also regionally and globally,” said Kibaki.
“This will ensure not only the relevance and global competitiveness of
graduates, but also the contribution of the institutions to national
development and the global competitiveness of the country.”
Kenya’s higher education sector has faced many challenges, frustrating
its ability to produce more graduates. These include inadequate
capacity, a mismatch between skills acquired and the demands of
industry, gender imbalances, rigid admissions criteria and limited
opportunities for credit transfer.
But the upgrade of colleges has been criticised by some educationists,
who believe they will leave a huge hole in further and vocational
training. The 15 colleges were previously offering diplomas and
certificates in areas such as engineering and electronics.
Also, technical institutions have in the past few years come under
threat as universities sought expansion avenues to resolve the
admissions crisis. This has seen universities collaborating with
technical institutions and changing the programmes they offer.
Universities have also been taking over teacher colleges.
Last year, the government announced a ban on such take-overs, concerned
that mid-tier training institutions were being wiped out.
“While there is need to upgrade the colleges to universities to expand
higher education, it is leaving a dangerous gap that will deny the
country much-needed technical skills,” said Daniel Ngugi, a lecturer in
Nairobi. “It only makes sense if the government can quickly set up new
technical colleges to replace the ones which have been upgraded.”
The Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology said last year
that it would increase spending to strengthen vocational and technical
training countrywide. The plan includes building new technical
institutions and elevating some to national polytechnic status.
Each of Kenya’s eight provinces is to have a national polytechnic,
Higher Education Minister Margaret Kamar said. The Ministry of Youth
Affairs and Sports runs at least 750 youth polytechnics – grassroots
vocational training schools – and is also reviving these learning
centres, most of which have become rundown and unable to offer adequate
services.
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