NEW UNIVERSITIES NEEDS TO BE MORE FOCUSED

One of the greatest legacies the Government of President Kibaki will leave behind is the development and opening up the education sector. Immediately after taking over the reins of power, the President declared gave all Kenyan children free primary education. This led to not only massive increase in children enrollments in primary schools and a subsequently high transition rates to high school, middle level and university education but also placed a huge burden to the few public universities in terms of admission. Of course, Kenya became one of the few countries in the world that provided universal free basic education to all its children of school going age. 

The challenges of low numbers of secondary schools required from those coming from primary school was subsequently addressed through government program such as Constituency development fund and government stimulus programs that build more secondary schools. The government further provided school fees subsidies and bursaries to poor students who could not pay full for their education in secondary. To ensure that the full cycle of education is complete, the parliament recently enacted two crucial laws, the TIVET Act 2013 and the Universities Act 2012. These laws are to ensure that all qualified Kenyans access quality tertiary and university education respectively besides addressing challenges in middle level colleges such as inadequate technical training institutions in most regions of the country, lack of trained instructors, ill -equipped workshops and training tools and poor remuneration and incentives for staff. On its part, the university Act 2012 is poised to significantly reform access, quality and management of university education in the country.

By enacting the University Act 2012, the President by a stroke of a pen increased the number of public universities from 7 to 17. This Act will ensure that most students qualifying from our secondary schools are not denied university education. In the last one and a half months, the President took it upon himself to award charters elevated 10 public university colleges to full public universities. So far the following 10 are full universities; Dedan Kimathi University of Science and Technology, Chuka University, Technical University of Kenya, Mombasa Technical University, Pwani University, Kisii, University, Eldoret University, Maasai Mara University, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology and Laikipia University. It is matter of time before the remaining 5 university colleges; Karatina University College, Meru University College of Science and Technology, MultiMedia University College of Kenya, Kabianga University College and South eastern University College also transition into full universities.   Through the Act, the universities will have the power to expand their training infrastructure to address the glaring challenges within the sector.

Among the many challenges that the new public universities need to urgently address is quality human capacity development at the postgraduate level. In as much as Kenya aspires to be a middle income, knowledge-based economy in the next 17 years, the country is deficient in highly trained manpower with Masters and PhD degrees necessary to drive significant socio-economic development in many sectors. The situation is even worse within the Science, Technology and Innovation (ST&I) sectors highly depended on research findings to develop innovative solutions to local Kenyan problems and research-based policies. Taking into consideration the 3 key mandates of universities; teaching, research and community service, the new public universities must develop unique but effective strategies in as far as meeting their mandates are concerned. Such strategies must include improvement in pedagogy, ring fencing best students through scholarship offers, use of ICT in education and research, creating technological and technology transfer systems through centers of excellence in research led by chairs and fostering of university-government –industry linkages. Above all our universities must strive to be entrepreneurial universities through globally competitive academic programs bench marked with reknown universities of the world. In this way, the Diaspora will find room to make a contribution into our educational system. Towards this end, the new university must scope the university education landscape, determine labor market demands and identity their niches within the training sector. University courses must however resonate with the local, the county, country and regional needs. For example, universities with the Nyanza and western region need to create a niche in courses in fresh water resource utilization and conservation, infectious disease research, tourism, and agriculture. In this way, universities in each region will develop competencies useful for exploiting resources within those regions even as they become centers of excellence in certain disciplines in way minimizing duplication of training at the expense of developing crucial skills in other deficient areas. The universities will also need to engage in serious collaborative Research and Development (R&D) if they have to bench mark with highly rated universities of the world which are the cradle of innovations, Nobel prizes and patents. University budgets for research must be increased to allow for more active engagement and quality mentorship if many young Kenyans have go for research careers.

More important, the new public universities have a great opportunity to do things differently. They must grasp the occasion to think outside the box and avoid having few universities duplicated in others. I would suggest more focus on emerging academic and research disciplines such as nanotechnology, biotechnology in food production and health, value addition in various sectors, mining, oil explorations, space science, nuclear physics and technologies, and climate change with a view of becoming beacons of excellence in these areas. They need to upscale training in specialized key areas such as oncology and engineering which are important for national socio-economic development. Our universities must think globally but act locally. At all times they must ensure that they offer high quality training and research that is relevant and on demand for local, national and regional needs. To the 22 public universities, the ball is in your court, you either score or the public scores against you.