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| A view of Mount Kenya University, one of the fastest growing private universities in Kenya |
Author Reference
Lango,
B. (2017). The private universities dilemma of new degree
students starting January 2017. Intel
Fire Group of Companies Blog. Nairobi, Kenya. October 02, 2016.
The education sector in Kenya has seen massive transformation and for those who have just experienced the wave of the new changes the results is real. The joke of the town is that the man in charge of the sector has restored it from manufactured results based on how rich a student ‘sponsors’ is to earned results based on a student’s abilities. Of great interest is the transition from the secondary to the university level of education. Remember that universities have been transformed to manufacturing machines whose main aim is to ensure maximum profitability at the expense of quality education. The statistics from the Kenyan Ministry of Education indicates that a total of 88,928 candidates scored the required university mean grade of C + and above in the just released results for year 2016 candidates. This is against the public universities capacity of a total of 96,500 new students across the country meaning the public universities will easily absorb all the qualified candidates.
According to Kenya’s statistical
abstract there are 22 public universities, 14 chartered private universities,
13 with letters of interim authority, and as at October 2016 there were 540
registered middle level colleges in Kenya. These statistics therefore indicates
that there are about 27 private universities expecting to admit students from
the just released secondary education results. The diploma and certificate
courses are spoilt for choices as the number of students that will be seeking
these levels of admission just increased. The poor performance which many
observers have attributed to stringent measures put in place to cub cheating
has ensured that the private universities will have to think hard where the
degree students will be coming from. This reality will start to sink once the
admission process starts in April 2017 and the private universities have to
come up with out of the box measures to ensure their programmes are attractive.
The problem though with most private universities in Kenya is the similarities
in their programmes and non-specialization which categorizes most of these
universities into one cadre and students have to look for other features such
as accessibility as the factors determining their signing.
Reactionary Measures
Any eminent problem has a solution
or a set thereof and this is no other that presents a set of solutions to its
adversaries which are the private universities and the private colleges in
public universities (read the cash cows
of public universities called the parallel degree programmes). When one
door closes, the other door opens and it is now time for universities to
strongly consider specialization in their mantra of courses by uniquely
weighing their strengths and positions within the industry and revise their
strategic plan with a kin interest towards uniqueness. Let the private
universities be known by their specialization so that joining public
universities is not only a favored culture by students but the students to
start thinking towards career-based approach to university education. The
private universities could also consider coming together to subsidize the cost
of education at their various institutions, of course with a view of making
them more attractive, by offering sponsorship programmes.
If these results are realized for
three consecutive periods then one should not be surprised if the private universities
start importation of students from other countries as they will not be
available locally. The fact that the education sector has or is in the process
of being streamlined should be a driving factor for the players to improve
quality and concentrate on value addition rather than grade ‘As’. And as the
motto of one of the private universities goes LaBorare est Orare (“To
work is to Pray”), lets pray that with the changes, the FUTURE IS HERE.
The writer is a PhD Generalist in
Service Delivery and Project Management.
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