They sat in deep silence with sullen faces as Egerton University Vice-Chancellor (VC) Prof Isaac Ongubo Kibwage gave his New Year speech at the graduation square.
The well-attended staff meeting was like a mini graduation, without pomp or colour. The sullen faces of lecturers and non-teaching staff spoke volumes.
For many months now, the financial nightmare has dodged the 85-year-old institution founded as a farm school by Lord Maurice Egerton of Tatton.
The VC in his speech laid bare the fact that the university is not yet out of the woods despite a commitment by the government to fund it in the next six months.
“Why are we clapping,” said an attentive lecturer, adding, “If the clap can translate to clearance of billions of salary arrears and other statutory deductions we are owed as staff, then I’m ready to clap.”
The lecturers and non-teaching staff at the Njoro-based campus have been receiving 60 per cent of their salaries since the outbreak of Covid-19, while other public universities have been paying their staff full salaries.
The university owes the dons and non-teaching staff more than Sh2 billion in pension contributions and other statutory deductions, among others.
Interestingly, the financially crippled university has agreed that all salary arrears will be forwarded to the government as Pending Bills against the wishes of the dons.
According to the Employment Act, Egerton management has contravened Part V – Protection of Wages by converting the staff salary into Pending Bills and is liable to a fine not exceeding Sh100,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.
“There is no way salary arrears can be converted into Pending Bills, yet the staff have been suffering for the last year. This is killing us. I’m owed more than Sh3 million in salary arrears, how do you convert my earnings into a Pending Bill?” posed an angry professor.
The Ministry of Education has agreed to bridge the funding gap deficit of Sh50 million per month, at the university, for the next six months to ease pressure on its widening budget hole, and reduce conflict between the dons and the varsity management.
Subsequently, the varsity management has committed to pay lecturers and non-teaching staff their full salaries from the end of January.
The government has formulated a new higher education funding model for public universities and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions that broke universities must embrace.
The new model was developed by the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform, which was appointed by President William Ruto in December 2022, to review the country’s education system.
To meet its commitment to running its operation, Egerton must increase its student population to attract more funding from the government.
“The government seems to have left public universities to die organically. Egerton University needs more students because it is facing low enrolment pressure. We need to change how we go about recruiting students,” said a senior lecturer.
“Egerton must change its admissions office to a recruiting office. The days of waiting for students to drop their applications and expecting to simply admit enough students to support existing operational budgets are over” added another lecturer.
The university requires between 6,500 and 7,000 students to attract enough resources from the government’s new funding model and will be in a position to bridge the government’s Sh50 million monthly support as it will get an additional Sh20 million.
In the last academic year, Egerton had about 4,600 students but lost 900 for various reasons including the bad blood between the dons and the university management board over salary dispute. At the moment, the university has about 3,900 First Year students.
Other students opted to join TVET, Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) while others went to study abroad in Australia, and Canada among other countries.
According to the university’s marketing strategy, the institution needs an additional 2,000 students to bridge the Sh50 million funding from the government to stay afloat and avoid salary conflicts with dons and non-teaching staff.
Prof Kibwage disclosed that some of the departments particularly in the administration are overstaffed.
“Some of these departments are overstaffed and for the last four years, no student has applied for any course in those departments,” said Prof Kibwage.
The degree programmes that have failed to attract students are Bachelor of Industrial Technology, Bachelor of Technology in Civil Engineering, Bachelor of Science (soil, environment, and land use management) and Bachelor of Science (Dairy Technology and Management).
Others include Bachelor of Science (Wildlife Management and Enterprise), Bachelor of Science (Integrated Forest resource management), Bachelor of Science (dairy land resources management) and Bachelor of Science (in applied aquatic science).
The university also needs to vigorously market some of its competitive programmes like veterinary medicine, engineering, law and medicine to attract students whose costs are relatively affordable compared to other universities.
In the past, the management blamed the negative publicity the university has been getting as the main cause of students’ declining enrolment. However, lecturers at the university unanimously agree that the staff vis-a-vis the student ratio is one of the financial challenges derailing operations at the institution.
The university payroll has about 1,100 staff out of which 500 are academic to handle 20,000 students and then you have 600 non-academic staff to handle zero students yet the money for paying them comes from the student enrolment.
Dr Ruto’s government has increased its budgetary allocation for universities from Sh54 billion in the current fiscal year to Sh84 billion in the 2023-24 fiscal year, an increase of 56 per cent.
With that kind of funding, universities will only be able to attract the government-increased capitation for students from an average of Sh152,000 to Sh208,000 per year, an increase of about 37 per cent.
The uphill task facing Egerton University is now to up its game and increase its student population which should be possible to achieve with proper marketing strategies.
