In the 1980s, Kenya’s higher education system was arguably the best in the region.
Unfortunately, those days are long gone when considering the quality of university education, research, innovation, and the social and economic value it delivers.
Today, public university education in Kenya is in a critical state, if not already collapsing. As the saying goes, “No fisherman boasts of a rotten fish.”
The implications of poor-quality higher education have not fully sunk in yet but are profound. High-quality and appropriate higher education is intrinsically linked to a country’s growth and global competitiveness.
Over the last decade, Kenya’s higher education system has faced significant challenges that could have been avoided with proper leadership, planning, and financial management. These include:
One is, the massification of university education: At the time of independence in 1963, there was only one University college, but now there are 78 institutions. Out of these, 42 are public and 36 are private. Over the years, the enrolment in universities has increased from 361,379 students in 2013 to 620,480 in 2022. This has negatively affected the quality of education, supervision and research. It has also opened the institutions to individuals who have limited knowledge and capacity in teaching, student supervision and research.
Two, ethnicising governance of public universities: Many universities in Kenya bear the names of dominant local ethnic groups, such as Meru, Kisii, and Maasai Mara universities. This has led to demands that top leadership positions (VCs, DVCs) be held by individuals from these communities, often regardless of qualifications.
This trend has fostered programme duplication, corruption, and poor governance. It is not surprising that each county in Kenya wants to establish a public university. This has promoted duplication of programmes and courses, hiring unqualified persons, poor quality of education and corruption, among other challenges.
Three, inadequate quality in education, research, and innovation: Public universities have struggled to provide quality, relevant education. Many graduates lack the skills to thrive in Kenya’s labour market. Staffing ratios (e.g., 1:70 teacher/student) and the proportion of professors with PhDs (40 per cent) fall short of UNESCO standards.
Additionally, inequitable access persists. According to the World Bank, the disparity ratio (enrollment rate of 20 per cent richest over enrollment rate of 20 per cent poorest) in university education is very high, meaning that a young Kenyan from the richest income group is 49 times more likely to access higher education than one from the lowest income group. Improving the quality and relevance of programmes (60 per cent STEM target) as in Kenya Vision 2030 is also a challenge. Therefore, finding innovative cost-saving measures, income diversification and new ways of diversifying resource mobilisation is an imperative investment.
Four, corruption and misuse of public resources: Several public universities face the challenge of corruption and misuse of public funds. For example, Moi University in the last month has been in the news for the wrong reasons—systematic corruption and staff not being paid for months.
Reports in the media indicate that 18 public universities are under the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) radar for misuse of public funds. Most of the problems bedevilling the universities seem to be caused by leadership and governance challenges. Top management, including university councils, seems to be part of the problem, said EACC spokesperson on Monday.
Five, motivating academic and non-academic staff: Public universities have not been able to honour collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) signed between universities and employees. As such there has been a series of strikes by academic and non-academic staff, the latest one happening in October-November 2024, and not the last if things do not change. This has negatively impacted teaching, supervision and research.
Six, meeting cost of operations and submitting statutory deductions: According to the University Fund report 2023, in total, public universities are indebted to the tune of Sh77.7 billion as of September 30, 2023 (a figure that continues to grow each month). Data available indicates that public universities face the challenge of not remitting statutory and third-party deductions. This was one of the reasons behind the recent strike.
Seven, the new funding model does not address equity and equality: In September 2022, the President appointed the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform. One of its recommendations included a new funding model for university education. The revised model proposes five groups of economic households based on their level of needs of family income. In this model, government contributions will cover varied proportions of tuition fees: Level 1 - 95 per cent, Level 2 - 90 per cent, Level 3 - 80 per cent, Level 4 - 70 per cent, and Level 5 -60 per cent of scholarships and loans.
The model has faced many practical challenges, either by omission or design. Many students from poor households have been misclassified into higher-income categories (Levels 5 and 4), rendering the model inequitable and ineffective. Some stakeholders are calling for it to be scraped, and we revert to the old system.
However, the government continue to insist that the new model just faces teething problems. This is far from the truth as available data and anecdotal samples indicate it is not working. It promotes inequity, inequality and limited access to university education, especially in courses like medicine and architecture), by children from poor backgrounds.
Kenya’s higher education system requires radical transformation and consolidation. Building on the new funding model, the government and universities must adopt innovative, system-wide approaches to achieve sustainability.
This call to action is a transformational vision for building financially sustainable universities in Kenya.
One of the strategic recommendations is introducing Performance-Based Funding (PBF). Performance-based funding is results-based financing or outcome-based funding. It is a method of funding higher education institutions based on allocating a proportion or the whole of the government’s higher education budget to institutions according to the achievement of specific performance metrics.
Prof Abagi is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Research & Development. Email: [email protected]
