While I agree that we needed to change to the new university funding model, we must be prepared to deal with some of the new realities coming up with its implementation. I recently noticed something strange when students selected their preferred programmes.
Almost three months ago, when students with C+ and above were selecting their degree programmes, I noticed something suspicious in the conversation between a mother and his son in my village.
The mother was forcing her son to choose an "arts" programme instead of a medicine, pharmacy, or engineering course despite him having a straight A. The mother said the fees charged to those “first-class degree” programmes were too high for the family and her son was to do “affordable” courses.
The son was mad, saying he worked so hard to pursue medicine. On the other hand, the mother insisted that they could not afford it. I got confused and was eager to do a summary analysis of whether students would choose “cost-friendly programmes” instead of “merited ones” they qualified for.
First forward last week, when our university received the students, I did my analysis, and true to my worry, our science and technology schools received fewer students than other arts and social sciences.
Our dean told us that he did not know the problem with such a massive decline in the number of students compared to other schools that have received a 100 per cent increase. I knew we had a huge problem to deal with.
Article 53 (1) (b) of the Constitution gives our children the right to affordable and accessible education.
What must be prepared for? First, I see problems in the implementation of the CBC curriculum. The CBC requires that 60 per cent of the students need STEM-based courses, 15 per cent in social science, and 15 per cent in arts and sports. How will we achieve this CBC dream with the new model in place? Is this a miss? Did the new funding model fail us? These are some of the questions I keep asking myself.
If we continue with the problem, more students qualified in medicine, engineering, pharmacy, actuarial science, and many other very technical issues will choose to do less expensive courses simply because their family cannot afford their dream career paths.
We might end up killing careers in medicine, engineering, and other highly technical studies at the expense of arts-based programmes.
The cost issues, the most critical factor in this new funding model, led to only 9000 students choosing private universities compared to 130,000 who selected public universities. Have we finally killed private universities? Were students only using cost to choose universities instead of merit? I also ask myself.
What policy reforms do we need? While the government claims that Means Testing Instrument will solve the problem, poor implementation will see most students who have scored ‘As’ and qualified for first-degree courses opt for other affordable options.
When students apply for loans, they still need to find out where they have been classified into any of the four; vulnerable, extremely needy, needy, and less needy.
As a result, many are worried and are now opening WhatsApp groups to crowdfund their children's university education.
- Dr Odhiambo is a lecturer at Meru University of Science and Technology. [email protected] ; @Dr_Jodhiambo
