Admission figures point to serious crisis in universities
A student in a near-empty lecture hall at Egerton University in Njoro, Nakuru County, on March 19, 2018. The university's teaching staff have been on strike for the better part of 2018 as they demand the implementation of their 2017-2021 collective bargaining agreement. PHOTO | AYUB MUIYURO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
The country has 74 universities – 31 public, 16 public constituent colleges, 18 private, five private constituent and 14 with letters of interim authority – but most of them are not sustainable.
At least one private university that has a capacity of 50 did not attract any student at all, while another that can accommodate 400 only got eight. A public university only attracted four students.
In total, universities declared they could admit 132,686 students, however, only 62,851 representing 47.4 per cent of the places were filled.
Details of the crisis facing higher education are now coming to the fore following the release of this year’s admission list. Many universities face bleak future because they cannot attract students hence may not survive if the trend continues. Even those which may survive will have to scrap several courses that have turned out to unpopular and irrelevant.
An analysis of the admission figures, released by Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed this week, is quite telling. Many private universities as well as newly-established public universities cannot attract students raising questions about their viability in the coming years. Equally dramatic, public universities will no longer offer parallel degree course because of lack students. This is a consequence of remarkably reduced number of qualifiers following stringent rules introduced two years ago to curb examination cheating in high schools.
