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The government has once again exposed itself regarding its unpreparedness over the funding of university education.With barely 10 days before public universities begin admitting first year students who sat their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) last year, the President William Ruto’s administration is still engulfed in confusion on the funding model.

Guardians and students have been left in darkness over the amount of money they are supposed to pay as fees. President Ruto has been forced to order the institutions of higher learning to issue new admission letters explaining the amount students are required to pay.

Initial admission letters had indicated a higher amount of the costs of the courses offered which were not affordable to the majority of the parents. The new model has faced criticism from stakeholders who are of the view that the variables being used to determine which category a student falls in to get funding cannot be validated.

The government had indicated it would use the Means Testing Instrument (MTI) model which incorporates the Kenya poverty report, family background, gender and the previous schools a student had attended to determine the amount of money a student would be allocated.

But last week, Higher Education Principal Secretary Beatrice Inyangala caused more confusion with her disclosure that monthly family income will be the key consideration.

Students from the poorest households earning less than Sh6,000 monthly will pay the lowest fees, while those from families raking in Sh120,000 and above will shoulder the heaviest burden.

Inyangala’s model however does not detail how the fees of students of jobless parents would be determined. Clearly, there has been a disconnect between  universities and government agencies such as Universities Fund and Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) over the funding model.

That is why universities have issued admission letters only indicating the cost of the courses without stipulating the amount of money each student will pay. According to Ruto, universities did not use the newly developed needs assessment tool to arrive at the fees structures.

Should the universities heed the President’s directive and issue new letters based on the correct government funding model, this would be the second time they would be doing so.

There is no clarity on both the university funding and costing of programmes. The confusion does not augur well for university education.