University Students to Pay More, Staff to Lose Jobs in New Reform

University Vice Chancellors want to make reforms that will see Kenyan universities categorized in specific areas of academic specialization.

The Vice-Chancellors Committee, according to their report said that for this to be effective, reforms such as increment of tuition fees, classification of universities based on their specialty and reducing the number of workers would be necessary.

In their report, they recommended that a new categorization of universities be established and provided for the Universities Act through an amendment, into four areas of specialty, which are, science and technology, traditional and comprehensive, technical and vocational and specialized and graduate.

“Each of the universities in the country should then be categorized into one of the four categories,” they said.

This, they say, will be helpful to students who henceforth will be joining the higher learning institutions as they would be well informed about the courses to pursue and where they are offered.

The university categorization will also see that the ratio of students who take science courses to those that take arts is at 70:30.

According to their report, the VCs acknowledge that with the 100 percent transition of students to secondary schools, universities are bound to admit more students in the future. They, therefore, do not welcome the idea to merge universities saying the expansion of universities and the law that every county should have at least one university is a reality that everyone needs to accept.

These proposals for reforms come after the Education Cabinet Secretary, Prof. George Magoha, warned VCs about the impending reforms and tough decisions they would have to make, in June.

As much as the university reforms are meant to rationalize and improve the quality of higher education, it will bring about hard times for some university workers and students.

During their committee, the Vice-Chancellors observed that most public universities spend a lot of money on non-essentials. This would mean that some university staff will lose their jobs.

“As part of the rationalization process and in order to promote efficiency, we recommend that the Universities should outsource as much of their non-core functions as possible. This will bring about efficiency in the operations of the university while at the same time cutting down on direct labor expenses,” read part of the report.

University students will also have to dig deeper into their pockets as the reforms will require them to pay three times more what they pay now as tuition fees.

“Public Universities are already struggling to meet their students’ needs. Tuition fees have remained stagnant at 16,000 shillings for three decades now. That is way less than what secondary students pay. We, therefore, recommend an upward review of tuition fees to 48,000 shillings,” said the VCs.

They said that other challenges public universities face that need immediate government action is lack of disciplinary focus, inadequate teaching staff, and poor funding structures, where they recommend that government funding be tied to the number of students.

Read Also: University of Nairobi To Scrap 40 Courses in “New Reforms”