In 2012, the Ministry of Education pushed several pieces of legislation in Parliament to decentralise service delivery, promote specialisation, expand access and guarantee quality of education.
The legal reforms were informed by the 2010 Constitution whose centrepiece was decentralisation, inclusion and participation.
For the education sector, the accent was that no child should be left behind.
The reforms in the education sector led to the creation of more than 20 corporations and which, with the benefit of hindsight, should not have been created at all.
Most of them ended up gobbling public resources without commensurate service delivery. Often, many engaged in territorial fights and legal suits simply because of duplicated roles and power play.
At least five State corporations in the higher education sector are earmarked for merger, ostensibly to harmonise their operations and create efficiencies.
These are the Universities Fund and the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb), which will be merged to create one funding agency.
The Technical and Vocational Training Authority (TVETA), Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNAQ) and the Commission for University Education (CUE), will be combined into a single entity and charged with the task of regulating all higher education institutions.
The National Education Sector Strategic Plan 2024-2027 acknowledges as much, stating that the Ministry of Education has numerous agencies and others outside it, with overlapping and conflicting mandates, undermining public service delivery.
Several examples abound. For one, the debacle of university funding illustrates, in part, the confusion arising from several entities performing the same function.
The task was assigned to the Universities Fund and Helb. Both were involved in the process of identifying and awarding scholarships and loans to deserving students.
The line between the two was very thin. Not only did this prove wooly and cumbersome, but also, it did not make sense to have two agencies handling the same portfolio.
It was even ridiculous that the UF was required to get funds from the National Treasury and transmit it to Helb to administer to students.
The board’s other functions include developing a transparent and fair means for allocation of funds to universities and establishing the maximum differentiated unit costs for academic programmes.
Universities are autonomous institutions with their own mandates. They prepare their budgets based on their needs and have access to the Treasury.
It is disingenuous, therefore, to have another player come into the equation to perform tasks that the universities should do on their own.
The second example is the regulation of higher education. There are at least four entities charged with the responsibility for regulating university and technical and vocational education and training.
In the TVET sector, there are two – Technical and Vocational Education and Training Authority (TVETA) that is in charge of accrediting and regulating training institutions and programmes.
Second is the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Curriculum Development, Assessment and Certification Council (TVET - CDACC) responsible for preparing curriculum and coordinating assessment. Add to this KNAQ that certifies and harmonises qualifications and the fallacy becomes starker.
Another example is the Kenya University and Colleges Central Placement Services (KUCCPS) whose core mandate is to place students in universities and tertiary institutions.
First, the task is superfluous. Admission is a periodic task that should be done by an ad hoc committee, not a fully-fledged agency.
In the past, the public universities did that on their own through the Joint Admissions Board (JAB), an industry caucus that operated on a needs basis and without an institutional office.
Second, it duplicates roles that should be performed by other entities. Teacher training colleges, the Kenya Medical Training College and other middle-level institutions should admit their own students without going through an intermediary.
The long-running tussle between KUCCPS and the KMTC that played out in courts several times in the past illustrates the misadventure.
These are just but a few examples but the point is that drastic actions are required to streamline and revamp higher education. Excess baggage should be offloaded and unfeasible policies tossed out.
Thus, the next step is to dissolve and merge some of the public universities, cut their bloated staff, especially the subordinates, and consolidate academic programmes.
At present, the 39 public universities and five constituent colleges, together with 28 chartered private universities and seven others, are an overkill.
Several reports such as the University Statistics published by CUE in 2023 have demonstrated that universities duplicate programmes, operate bloated staff and collectively suffer from serious underfunding and, therefore, require urgent policy and institutional reforms.
To be sure, the CUE report indicates that nearly half of the students are enrolled in just three programmes – education, business and humanities – offered across most universities.
Not only does this show duplication, it also raises the issue of value addition. Considering that the government has put a freeze on teacher employment, it is questionable why universities should spend a lot of their resources on education degree courses.
Contrastingly, some courses like fisheries, forestry, veterinary science, transport and logistics hardly attract students. Again, that brings to question their viability and why universities should continue offering them.
Since the universities are suffocating under heavy debts, which stood at Sh75 billion last year, the sustainability concerns must be addressed.
The introduction of a new funding model in 2023, that had been packaged as a panacea, fell on its head because it was poorly thought through, impractical and unrealistic.
The Cabinet’s proposal to dissolve and merge state corporations must begin in earnest but in higher education, should go farther and include others not in the list.
It should be followed by the reduction of public universities and the ballooned workforce, as well as confronting governance challenges.
