Addressing challenges facing higher education calls for radical reforms

Many universities in Kenya are facing financial challenges. There are reports of instances where some universities lack sufficient funds to pay salaries and cater for daily operations. Some universities are practically insolvent. They are unable to pay their debts. Discussions on how universities got into these challenges have gone on for a while.

In these discussions, some argue that the problem has been inadequate funding of public universities by the government. There is also the argument that the fees students pay for various courses are so low that universities must subsidise teaching.

Many argue that increased funding by the government and increasing student fees for the various degree programmes would address the problem. These are important solutions and could end the problem.

But the most immediate problem is the debts that the universities owe. Many make statutory deductions without remitting these to the relevant institutions.

However, the reasons for the failure to remit the contributions are rarely brought to public attention. The reasons vary from one institution to another, but there is also the view that annual budgetary allocations to the universities cannot fully cover the financial commitments entered by the universities.

Debts continue to pile and the financial crisis continues to deepen. Therefore, providing the resources to pay the debts would be an immediate solution, but there are doubts whether some of the universities will not incur similar debts in the future if the level of state funding remains unpredictable.

The debate on these issues points to the need for increased government funding and increasing fees for the various programmes offered at the universities.

That said, these discussions have completely ignored the importance of university education and why universities exist.

Secondly, the debate does not recognise that Kenya is far ahead of many comparator countries in terms of financing university education and enrolment. Without bringing to light these issues, it is difficult for many to see why attention should be given to university education.

Sub-Saharan average

To begin with, Kenya appears to be funding the education sector better than many other countries in Africa. Indeed, the share of sector budget for education is about 25 per cent. This is high compared to many countries in Africa, where not many reach the 15 per cent mark.

Government expenditure on education is about 5.3 per cent of GDP. This is higher than the Sub-Saharan Africa average of 4.5 per cent. Kenya outperforms Malaysia (4.2 per cent) and Indonesia at 3.5 per cent in Southeast Asia.

Kenya is performing better than many comparators in funding at the higher education level too. Kenya spends about 1.2 per cent of GDP on higher education. This is slightly more than South Africa, whose spending on higher education is 0.9 per cent. Kenya’s spending is at the same level with Canada and above the UK at 0.5 per cent. It is about the same level with Netherlands and Germany.

The country is also outperforming many in enrolment at the tertiary level. By 2018, Kenya’s gross enrolment in higher education was 11.5 per cent, while the Sub-Saharan Africa rate was nine per cent. Of course these are very low figures compared to what obtains in Western Europe, North America or even among the Asian Tigers. But this is a problem that will be resolved by establishing the Kenya Open University, which the current government is keen to roll out and admit students within this year.

The above suggests that our problem is not essentially one of budget allocation. Many of course miss this argument when the focus remains on funding. And in fact, funding may not solve all the problems that universities continue to face, though it is still an issue that requires a solution if we are to make universities sustainable.

The funding challenges will continue to deepen and the number of insolvent universities will increase if universities bury their heads in the sand hoping for increased funding. The number of students enrolled has continued to increase from 2016. The number has increased without a corresponding increase in allocation to universities.

The Differentiated Unit Cost model of financing universities has not changed. Fees that universities charge have remained the same from around 1989. It is difficult for universities to operate efficiently if these are the historical factors on funding. In addition, Collective Bargaining Agreements adopted over the years meant enhanced salaries but this is not matched with increased budget allocations. Therefore, there are good reasons to support the argument that funding is a problem. It should be streamlined and enhanced for sustainability of universities.

Notwithstanding these arguments, there are questions about governance and management of universities that have contributed to these challenges. For more than 10 years, some of the universities ran profitable module two or parallel programmes. Through this plan, those not enrolled through regular placement could enrol to pursue courses of their choice if they could afford to pay the relatively higher fees charged. This earned universities revenue.

How some of the universities invested the revenue or how some of them managed the profits earned through this income stream may have contributed to the problems that many are facing today. And on this one may argue that the leadership and governance of universities matters. Some did not see the end of this income stream coming. And when it came to an end, many found themselves with more staff to pay but the allocation is not sufficient to support the recurrent expenditure.

It does not matter what the causes of the problem are. It matters that we must pay attention to sustainability of the universities. Universities everywhere are established to teach, conduct research to enhance knowledge development, and support community service. University education, simply put, lays a foundation for human resource development.

Indeed, the quality of human resource in any country reflects the country’s quality of education. If we put less resources on university education, then we shall have a poor human resource base and indeed our human capital development will be poorer. This means that the quality of our graduates will be so low that they will be outcompeted in the global world.

The point then is that the government should address the challenges that are within its purview. One of these is, of course, the issue of debts that the universities have accumulated over the years owing to inadequate budget allocation to meet incurred costs, including costs arising from Collective Bargaining Agreements and attendant enhancement of salaries.

Sustainable solutions

But the universities have to think hard and provide sustainable solutions. Thus far, many universities have not linked funding to performance and research productivity. Even when they had high enrolment and increased revenue through the ‘parallel’ programmes, some of them did not pay attention to improving research and productivity in terms of research outputs, and the number of graduates and post-graduates trained.

Arguably, many proceeded with the usual business of privileging teaching. They engaged in teaching at the expense of research and training. Many did not invest in research or building capacity of young faculties to conduct research and publish.

This failure continues to reflect in how Kenyan universities and scholars rate in global rankings. On the whole, no university in Kenya is among the top 300 universities in the world. But we have some universities in South Africa and Egypt at this level. The same can be said about ranking of scholars by publications. Kenyan scholars compare poorly with peers in Europe and North America. South Africa and Egypt outperform them in Africa.

What have these countries done differently? They have paid attention to research and incentivised their scholars to publish their research work in credible and peer-reviewed international publications. In South Africa, the government, through the Ministry of Education, has gazetted the journals where their scholars should publish and those who meet the challenge get monetary rewards.

Many governments have taken this route of recommending journals where their scholars should publish. And the governments also use these products for national development efforts. They use university products to make and implement policies for a better society. This is a leaf we should borrow.

Prof Karuti Kanyinga is based at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), University of Nairobi, [email protected], Twitter: @karutikk