By Roy Hezron
Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu has this morning [November 10, 2022] met University Academic Staff Union (UASU) officials led by the National Chairperson Grace Nyongesa and Secretary General Dr. Constantine Wasonga Opiyo days after the CS came under fire from the union over the issue of funding public universities.
In the meeting held at Jogoo House, the CS reiterated that the government will continue funding public universities and further challenged higher learning institutions to invest more in research and innovation in order to increase their internally generated income.
“The Cabinet Secretary said that the government will fully support the Universities including funding on capitations and he has also encouraged the institutions to dwell more on Research and Innovation to generate additional funds to run their programmes,” the Ministry of Education tweeted on its official Twitter account.
The meeting came few days after the union held a press conference on Monday, November 7, 2022 where Machogu come under sharp criticism following his recent remarks suggesting that the government would stop funding public universities.
Dr. Wasonga stated that if the state stops funding public universities, it will give them a leeway to charge fees as they wish; a move that could disenfranchise economically disadvantaged students.
He lamented that public universities are in a serious crisis of underfunding due to insufficient capitation making its running nearly impossible.
Dr. Wasonga added that the current fee being charged for government-sponsored students – Ksh16, 000 per semester – was way below the current market rates.
“If public universities are given free will to charge fees at the current market rate, it will be very expensive. This means university education will only be accessed by the rich and we will not allow that,” he stated.
The Secretary General also called for an urgent stakeholders’ forum to address the current financial crisis facing the universities adding that failure to do so would push higher education towards the verge of collapsing.
“The financial situation in universities has now reached a crisis level and unless it is addressed immediately, there is imminent collapse of higher education. UASU calls for an urgent stakeholders’ forum to discuss the funding crisis in Public Universities with a view to finding a lasting solution,” said Dr. Wasonga.
Earlier, CS Machogu had said that the current financial crisis affecting institutions of higher learning called for creation of alternative sources of income to ease pressure on the government as the State was on the verge of withdrawing its financial support.
“In Kenya, education takes about 25.9 per cent of the budget and we have to find other ways of generating revenues for universities. I’m going to move around each university in Kenya because a number are faced with financial problems and we are encouraging that they must generate their own income because the exchequer as it is now is not going to continue funding anymore,” he said.
However, while at Kiambu Institute of Science and Technology during the ground breaking ceremony for an industrial mechatronics workshop on November 8, 2022 the CS changed tune and said that despite the upcoming budget cuts in other ministries, the government shall not interfere with money allocated to the Ministry of Education.
