Concerns after 19 per cent of students reach varsity

The number of learners qualifying for university placement is too low and interventions are urgently required to increase enrollment, the Universities Fund has said.

According to Universities Fund chief executive Geoffrey Monari, only 19 per cent of the 869,782 students who sat last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination obtained the university cut off point of C plus and above, which is too low compared to other developed countries.

“One of the key issues we need to look at is this figure of 19 per cent. As a country, we need to interrogate this because if you look at developed countries and others in Africa for students going to universities mainly, this figure is very low,” Monari said during a workshop on funding of universities.

“We are condemning about 80 per cent of students who are sometimes forced to take a longer route to obtain a university degree, which is also very costly.”

Some 173,137 students are expected to join various universities to pursue degree courses, 24.5 per cent or 213,392 others who scored between C plain to C minus will pursue diploma, 33.1 per cent or 287,984 scored between D plus and D plain will study certificate or crafts courses while 22.5 per cent or 195,279 who scored D- (minus) to E will take artisan courses.

Although projections are that the number of learners qualifying to join universities will slightly increase in coming years, Monari said it is still low given the level of competitiveness globally.

“We want more students going to universities and tertiary education so that we can be able to supply to the world, Kenyans who can be able to give the required human capital. So we should not be worried when more learners get the required graduates, the number should grow and we can supply more graduates,” he stated.

He made the remarks as he explained that the new funding model for universities is a move in the right direction, saying the Sh16,000 that has been in place for the last 34 years was inadequate to run the institutions.

“We are happy that when the new Government came into place, they looked at this matter as part of their manifesto and the President appointed the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) to look into this issue,” said Monari.

He noted that the working group went across the country to listen to Kenyans, which subsequently guided the establishment of the new model launched by President William Ruto a fortnight ago.

Coalition of views

“The funding is mainly not our model, it is a coalition of views of Kenyans who thought that university education was suffering. The industry has also been saying that students coming out of universities are not up to the standard and have to invest…it means to retrain them which is costly,” he explained.

A myriad of factors and the views that the working party were reworked to give rise to the new model. According to Monari, the Government developed the Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC) 2016, a 14-cluster model based on the estimated cost of running various programmes. Under the DUC model, the Government caters for 80 per cent of the unit cost while the remaining 20 per cent is borne by households and loans.

But under this model, he said universities started accruing debts for various reasons including the fact that the number of students continued to grow but not in tandem with funds in universities.

“From 2016, the DUC, which was being funded at 66 per cent, has reduced this year to 48 per cent. When we simulated the future, there have been increments from the Government but not in tandem with the number of students being admitted,” he said.

To this end, he explained there was urgent need to rethink because universities’ debts have been accruing and currently stand at Sh61 billion, caused by perennial underfunding among other factors.

“The urgency that we needed to rethink the funding model was there because the quality of our education has been affected in universities because of these debts – they could not pay salaries some are today still paying 60 per cent, others have their accounts frozen so they cannot meet their daily mandate and we all know all these factors affect the quality of education,” he stated.

Monari, however, explained that the DUC model will be implemented for continuing students until they are taught, whether in public or private universities.