Graduates at Moi University's 32rd graduation ceremony at the main
campus in Eldoret on September 22, 2016. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NATION
MEDIA GROUP
Uncertainty remains on where parallel degree programmes and
private universities will source students after Education Cabinet
Secretary Fred Matiang’i announced public universities will directly
absorb all the
candidates who scored a mean grade of C+ and above in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination.
candidates who scored a mean grade of C+ and above in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination.
More
than 44,000 students who scored C-plain and hoped to join universities
either through Module II (parallel programme) or enrol in private
institutions have been shut out of degree programmes after early
indications that the cut-off points for selection into various courses
will not be lowered.
But, more importantly, after
years of opening up higher education and minting billions of shillings
courtesy of the huge number of students that get locked out of public
universities through the regular programme admissions, private
universities and the financially lucrative parallel programme are facing
the biggest test yet.
For the first time in several
years, the government on Thursday said it will absorb all the 88,929
candidates who scored between A and C+ in last year’s Form Four
examination. This sent shockwaves across the higher education sector.
The
move has left no room for state-owned universities to enrol privately
sponsored students through the parallel programme while shrinking the
admission pool for private universities which have thrived mainly
because of the inadequacies in the higher education sector.
Added to this are questions on the places available in middle-level colleges that have in recent years been largely shunned.
This has triggered speculation that the government will adjust
the qualifications for higher education come April when the Kenya
Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service comes up with the
cut-off points.
SHOCKING RESULTS
But on Saturday, Dr Matiang’i told the Nation it was unlikely the minimum qualifications would be lowered.
“The
policy of government is that the minimum qualification one needs to
join university is C+. It will be very simplistic if we think of it in
another way because what would happen next year if we have more people
with a C+; will we raise it again? And then again think of it this way,
will we also have to drop the minimum qualification for diploma
programmes to C-? No,” he said.
The Nation
has also learnt that the KCSE results were so shocking that top
officials from the Ministry of Education and the Kenya National
Examinations Council had to brief President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was in
Mombasa on holiday, before releasing them because of the anticipated
aftershocks.
This is because, although the drastic drop
in performance in the KCSE exam was symptomatic of the culture of exam
cheating and leakages that has clouded the national exams for the past
several years, the ripple effects in the sector will be far and wide.
Public
universities have spent massive resources, most of it borrowed, to set
up hundreds of satellite campuses to cater for the demand for higher
education which has been surging each year with thousands registering
especially for evening classes.
In addition, they have
hired hundreds of part-time lecturers to teach module two programmes. Mr
Francis Aduol, the Vice-Chancellor at the Technical University of
Kenya, says the consequences of the expected shrink in enrolment numbers
will be grave.
“A huge chunk of module two will die.
The programme was only started because a lot of students could not get
direct entry into university and it appears like it will no longer be
the case,” he says.
CAMPUSES WILL SHUT DOWN
“Permanent
university staff in the universities are hired based on the students
admitted through direct entry and everyone else, including lecturers who
teach module two courses, are hired on part-time basis. Because revenue
streams will decline and there will be no students, some campuses will
shut down and staff, including lecturers, will lose their jobs,” he
says.
This is in addition to the fact that the
placement body will have a difficult time setting the cluster points for
various courses since there was a general drop in performance.
In
2015, some 3,500 students were selected to study architecture,
actuarial science, civil engineering, electrical and electronic
engineering, mechanical engineering, dental surgery, pharmacy,
veterinary medicine, medicine, surgery and law.
These
11 courses are the most prestigious and have, for a long time, required
one to score a straight A in order to qualify. In 2015, there were 2,636
straight As but in last year’s examination, only 141 candidates scored
an A.
KUCCPS chief executive Francis Muraguri says they
will review the cluster points and call on students who wish to
re-select their preferred courses to do so.
“We have
capacity to admit all the 88,000 students but generally from the way
they performed, it is likely the cluster points will go down,” he says.
“But it doesn’t mean we will enrol anyone who is less than qualified,” he says.
“But it doesn’t mean we will enrol anyone who is less than qualified,” he says.
Only
88,928 candidates attained C+ and above in the 2016 examination
compared to 169,492 candidates who managed the grades of C-plus and
above in 2015, representing a 47 per cent drop in the number of students
who have qualified for university.
Public universities
get funding from government but get almost half of their revenue from
the module two programme while private universities depend almost
entirely on the large number of students who don’t qualify for state
sponsorship for higher education.
For example, out of
the 522,870 candidates who sat the 2015 KCSE examination, 165,766 scored
the minimum university entry qualification of a C+ and above. However,
only 74,389 were selected to join public universities due to limited
spaces with the cut-off being set at a B of 60 points for male
candidates and B of 58 points for female candidates.
In
the previous year, 149,717 candidates scored the minimum university
entry qualification of a C+ and above out of 483,630 who sat the KCSE
exam. For this reason only 67,000 were selected to join public
universities on a government sponsorship.
FEES CHARGED VARY
For
these two years alone, there were a combined 174,094 students who had
qualified to join university but could not, thus providing a huge pool
for private and public universities to absorb those who could pay.
This
has been the trend for a number of years and it is the reason the
module two programme and private universities have grown exponentially.
A
state sponsored student in a public university pays about Sh17,000 per
semester. In comparison, a privately sponsored student in the same
institution pays upwards of Sh70,000 a semester while fees charged in
private universities vary. At Daystar University, a first year at their
Athi River Campus, for instance, will pay at least Sh99,200 in the first
semester alone.
Prof Aduol says that the parallel programmes which were introduced in the year 2000 were started with good intentions.
“One
cannot deny that quality has been compromised because every university
took its own road because of greed when universities realised there was a
demand,” he says.
“It will bring some order and
universities will have to think of other avenues they can exploit in
order to attract students, like by improving the quality of education
they offer.” he adds.
Currently, the country has 33
public universities and 35 private ones, out of which 17 are fully
chartered with a combined total of 539,749 students, according to the
Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. About two-thirds of these are
self-sponsored and the Commission for University Education (CUE) has
declared that they will all share the 88,000 students this year.
“We cannot change that unless the government directs so,” CUE chief executive David Some says.
“This
would enable us implement the programme where university students get
loans depending on their courses, known as Differentiated Unit Cost
(DUC), which will be rolled out in July to address some of the
shortcomings in funding,” he says.
INCREASE FUNDING
Universities
last year proposed an increase in funding to students from the current
Sh32 billion per year to Sh65 billion. A report by vice-chancellors led
by Prof Aduol said it costs Sh600,000 to train a dentist, medicine costs
Sh576,000, veterinary medicine Sh468,000, pharmacy Sh432,000 and a
general art degree Sh144,000. Under the current funding formula, the
government provides Sh86,000 to public universities for each student in
public universities.
But while public universities will
have the consolation of getting a huge chunk of the government
sponsored students because of the low fees they charge, private
universities will most likely struggle to get the required numbers due
to the cost factor.
Last year, they managed to lobby
the government to admit 12,000 of their first year students but the
National Association of Private Universities in Kenya says their annual
enrolment capacity is 20,000 students. Mr Simon Gicharu, who is the
association’s chair, says they have to re-engineer their business models
in order to survive.
“The problem is that most private
universities only offer art-based courses which puts them at a
disadvantage and because the meat is now too small to share, those that
do not change their business models will not survive,” he says.
“A
good way would be strengthening the diploma courses and introducing
science-based courses like medicine and engineering,” he says.
Private
universities depend entirely on student fees for their upkeep are
already struggling to exist as demonstrated by a report released in
August last year by CUE which said they are indebted to a tune of Sh7
billion.
State owned universities receive up to 50 per cent of their income from the government.
“The
university sub-sector is spending more resources than what it receives
from the various income streams. If this trend is not remedied then the
universities may not meet their obligations as mandated in law,” said
The State of University Education in Kenya report.
It added that a number of institutions were on the verge of folding up.
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