An academic with parallel ideas

As a lecturer at Kenyatta University in the 1990s, Dr Kilemi Mwiria paid with his job for agitating for staff rights. But in a strange twist of fate, he is now in charge of the same higher education system that banished him to joblessness.

Radical in thought and persuasive in speech, the Tigania West MP and Higher Education assistant minister does not shy away from proffering ideas that go against the grain.

This week he touched a raw nerve when he called for the scrapping of the popular module II (parallel degree) programme in public universities to allow admission of more regular students.

Dr Mwiria pointed out that only one-third of students who had attained the minimum grade for selection to the regular programmes have been picked this year.

An estimated 57,000 have been locked out, yet the institutions continue to enrol more parallel degree students — a move he thinks is motivated by money, not merit. 

“I call it a dilemma for the authorities and the universities,” Dr Mwiria said about his suggestion, which has stirred debate.

The educationist is not new to controversy. He was the pioneer secretary general of the Universities Academic Staff Union in 1994, but was sacked for engaging in union activities that resulted in a strike.

For his troubles, the then KU Vice-Chancellor, Prof George Eshiwani, ordered Dr Mwiria out of the staff quarters for advocating for “better remuneration for lecturers and depoliticising university education”.

“During that time, university education was undergoing rapid change with the opening up of new campuses,” he told the Saturday Nation in a recent interview.

Born in Meru on May 17, 1954, he attended Kang’aru High School before joining the University of Nairobi in 1975 for his bachelor’s degree in sociology.

He later got a scholarship under the university development fellowship by the Rockefeller Foundation to study higher education, and completed his Master’s in comparative education in 1979 at the University of Chicago.

Dr Mwiria holds a PhD in international development education from Stanford University.

He has worked for governments and international organisations in over 20 countries. The assistant minister’s resume includes working as a researcher, development consultant and education policy advisor for the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, UNESCO, the American Institute of Research and the Rockefeller Foundation among others. 

“After losing my job, I went to the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa where I worked as a senior research fellow on education policy, specifically higher education,” he said.   

In 2002, the political bug bit him and he was elected MP for Tigania West, a seat he retained in 2007. 

“Shouting ‘Moi must go!’ was not enough for me,” he said. “Most educated people say they are not interested in politics, leaving the game to others.” 

Dr Mwiria’s wife, a PhD holder in economics, is a director with the United Nations in Arusha, Tanzania. The couple has two sons.

Dr Mwiria spoke to Saturday Nation.

This week you called for the scrapping of parallel degree programmes. What is your justification for this? 

The argument here is hinged on the ability of a qualified child from a poor background being locked out of public university due to limited bed capacity.
However, rich parents can get their children to the most marketable degree courses in the same universities that locked out the poor child.

It is also important to note that most parallel degree students usually score lower grades in KCSE than those who are otherwise denied this opportunity, openly showing that money, and not merit, is the overriding factor.

This in itself is inequality that the Government needs to take radical measures to resolve or else education in the universities will remain a preserve of the rich.

When rich parents can get their children to enrol in degrees like medicine, law, engineering or pharmacy, who will fight for the right of the child from a district school who scored a B-? Let the students wishing to join the programmes be enrolled in the private universities.

By doing so, they will be strengthening the private universities that will in turn have to diversify on their curriculum and introduce competitive courses that are hard to mount but with necessary incentives from the government, it will be possible.

In fact, parallel degrees are a way of having private universities within the public ones!

How will public universities raise income if parallel degree programmes are scrapped?

The government should put in more money in the universities. It is not the business of the universities to raise income at the expense of their core mandate.
Donors should also take a keener interest in supporting university education.

If they can allocate so much resources for primary and secondary free education, it is prudent for them to do it for university education as well. It is also possible to have a differentiated fee paying structure like the one used in Starehe Boys Centre, where students pay depending on their socio-economic ability. 

Does this mean the parallel degree programmes have done more harm than good to university education?

Let’s appreciate the positive impact that parallel degree programmes have had on the universities, lecturers and students.

The money generated from Module II programmes has been critical in expanding universities. In fact, the government could not have raised the capital to maintain the current state of the institutions.

It has also been a window of opportunity for people who did not have a chance — not just the rich. The poor have also used the programmes to access university education.

Many graduates have had on-the-job training thanks to the parallel degree programmes and hardworking lecturers are also making a good fortune out of the programmes.

So, what is the way forward for higher education in Kenya?

The government should create a public university and a technical institute in each county. This will bring higher education to the doorsteps of the common man and issues of affordability will be taken care of in the process.

Plans are already afoot to start an open university this year so that higher education can be accessed remotely. This is targeted to have 20,000 students enrolled and the number is set to increase.

Existing facilities in the public universities also need to be expanded and stalled projects revived. There is a lot of idle land lying in the universities that can be translated into better usage.

By and large, the government will ultimately be forced to consider alternate modes of delivery of higher education. The private sector will need to be supported, too, by the government giving investors land who are willing to come up with universities, instituting tax breaks and soft loans on building materials as well as constructing roads and provision of social amenities that support their investment.