Private universities have written to the government demanding payment of Sh47.1 billion they claim is owed to them for teaching government-sponsored students since the 2016/2017 academic year.
The amount forms part of the pending bills the government owes various entities for goods and services rendered.
The government operated the programme to place and sponsor some students in private universities in 2016 after reforms in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations greatly reduced the number of university qualifiers.
However, the government did not fully pay 80 per cent of the tuition fees for the students it placed in private universities and some of them have since been discontinued.
Over the period, the private universities expected to receive a total of Sh62.4 billion but the government disbursed Sh15.2 billion to the institutions, leaving the contested balance.
The demand letter, seen by Higher Education, lists 31 private universities that have hosted 320,892 government-sponsored students over the period.
It was drafted on November 5 by Edwin S Wabuge on behalf of the Kenya Association of Private Universities (KAPU).
It is addressed to the Cabinet secretaries for Education and the National Treasury and Economic Planning, the principal secretaries for Higher Education and Treasury as well as the chief executive officer of the Universities Fund and the Attorney-General.
The respective offices received and stamped the letter on November 13, but Higher Education has established that no response has been received. KAPU has given the government 30 days to pay up or present a payment plan.
The demand poses a new headache for the government which two weeks ago agreed to a Sh9.7 billion pay deal with lecturers in public universities who had been on strike. The payment is to be spread over three years.
According to the letter, the decision to take the legal route was adopted after the annual general meeting of the union that was held on May 28.
“The government’s obligation was/is to disburse funds to the private universities through the Universities Fund for all students placed by the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (Kuccps) to fund their education.
The disbursement was based on the Universities Fund Criteria for Allocation of Funds to Universities,” the letter reads.
In the last two admission cycles, the government has not sponsored any students in private universities. Those placed in the universities meet the cost of their education.
They are eligible for student loans by the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) but do not qualify for scholarships under the higher education funding model introduced last year.
“During the afore-stated period, our client’s constituent members have been continuously short-changed and mistreated as the national government reneged on its undertaking to fund the students it has placed in private universities fully. Where disbursements have been made, the same have been received in piecemeal and in part leaving huge balances,” the letter reads.
“Our client further notes that the students placed in private universities are not any less than their counterparts in public universities. The non-alignment in allocation of resources by government for all its students is discriminative and in utter violation of Article 27 of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010."
According to KAPU, the amount claimed is the debt owed up to the end of June 2023. On February 6, 2024, the CEO of the Universities Fund Geoffrey Monari testified before the Pending Bills Verification Committee that the Fund had pending bills of Sh31.4 billion as of June 30, 2022. It included the money owed to private universities.
According to the demand letter, Mt Kenya University is owed the highest amount at Sh10.2 billion, followed by Kabarak University (Sh5.8 billion), KCA University (Sh4.6 billion), Kenya Methodist University (Sh3.9 billion) and the Catholic University of East Africa (Sh3.7 billion).
Other top claims include those of the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton (Sh2.7 billion), Zetech University (Sh2.4 billion), Presbyterian University (Sh2 billion), St Paul’s University (Sh1.7 billion) and Africa Nazarene University (Sh1.4 billion).
