Thirty one Private universities are demanding payment of Sh48.8 billion in tuition fees that the government owes them for hosting students on their campuses in a programme that began in 2016 but has since been stopped.
The demand piles pressure on the government which is already struggling to fund public universities which cumulatively have pending bills of about Sh72 billion.
Data presented to Parliament by the Kenya Association of Private Universities (KAPU) indicates that Mt Kenya University, Kabarak University and Catholic University of East Africa (CUEA) top the list of 31 private universities who are claiming the money from the Universities Fund in unpaid tuition funding.
The State agency owes Mt Kenya University the highest amount (Sh12.9 billion) for hosting the government-sponsored students. Kabarak University is owed Sh6.8 billion, CUEA Sh4.3 billion, Kenya Methodist University Sh3.8 billion, and Zetech University Sh3.2 billion.
KAPU now wants the Committee on Education of the National Assembly to intervene, saying previous efforts to seek redress from relevant government bodies have been unsuccessful.
“It is our humble request that the National Assembly intervenes to ensure that all dues owed to private universities are settled to ensure their sustainability as going concern,” KAPU secretary Edwin Simiyu said.
According to the KAPU, the bill has accumulated since 2016 when the government introduced a policy shift allowing the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) to place students in both public and private universities to help ease an admission crisis in public universities.
This policy reduced the ability of private institutions to independently recruit self-sponsored students, making them heavily reliant on state-funded placements. Under the arrangement, the government committed to paying for 80 per cent of the tuition cost per student through the differentiated unit cost (DUC) model, with households expected to cover the remaining 20 percent.
However, the association says the Universities Fund has consistently defaulted on its obligation, leading to the current financial strain.
“This has forced most of the private universities to eat into their reserves to finance the education of students placed by the government in their institutions,” said Kapu chairperson Prof (Fr) Stephen Mbugua Ngari who is also the vice chancellor at CUEA.
KAPU explained that the monies owed varies from one private university to the other based on the number of students placed in the institutions which is also tied to their declared capacities as verified by the Commission for University Education (CUE).
The declared slots by the institutions are controlled by the CUE which considers the facilities available in the institutions to determine how many students can be accommodated.
An institution can either drop programmes especially those that do not attract students or announce more offerings due to demand from the market.
All aside from eight private universities are owed monies by the UF in varied amounts. The eight include Aga Khan University, Gretsa University, KCA University, Lukenya University, PAC University, Strathmore University and United States International University.
The revelations come on the back of similar cash flow challenges by public universities that has made it difficult to meet financial obligations, including debts, operational costs, and staff salaries.
KAPU is now calling for a review and harmonization of the universities funding policy to boost fairness and equity among students in terms of choice of institution and preferred programmes.
The association urges that funding should always follow the student irrespective of whether they made a choice to a public university.
Education Committee session chair Clive Gisaro directed Kapu that to propose a team that would work with Parliament on proposed reforms in the education sector.
Both public and private universities are grappling with cash flow challenges amid a dip in number of student enrollments as more students opt for technical courses.
Official data shows the number of students opting for technical and vocational training has steadily outpaced those preferring university degree programmes over the past four years, underscoring a significant shift in career pathway preferences.
The data from KUCCPS reveals that placements to Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions have consistently exceeded those to universities since the financial year ending June 2022.
The last time degree programme placements surpassed those for TVETs was in 2021, when 122,831 students were admitted to universities compared to 94,609 placed in TVET institutions
