Kenyan Universities’ fees shocker for parents, students

 

School of Education students celebrate after completing 4 year course at Moi University Main Campus during the 32 graduation ceremony in Eldoret yesterday. 22.09.2016. PHOTOS BY PETER OCHIENG/STANDARD.

Council of VCs concedes public universities are in the red, asks State to double subsidies and call for fee increase.

Public universities may be forced to increase fees by Sh8, 000 to shake off financial constraints that have left them broke. The 32 universities want annual fees paid by students increased from Sh16,000 to Sh24,000, and the Government to also raise the average contribution per student to Sh250,000, from an average of Sh129,058.

They argue the current funding model is outdated and blame it for the financial stress that has seen a majority of public universities sink into huge debts with negative working capital as detailed in a recent parliamentary watchdog report.

But in the meantime, to help the struggling institutions, the Government is being pushed to increase its annual capitation by Sh10 billion by next year.

It also emerged that, under this arrangement, universities would have to increase their contribution per student to up to Sh50, 000 per year.

The details emerged as universities sought to clarify why it may never be sustainable to run the institutions of higher learning under the current funding formula.

Data seen by The Standard show that the current Sh32.8 billion funding of the public universities is inadequate and its distribution skewed, leaving many institutions vulnerable.

With a growing student population and a funding formula that has never been revised for the past 25 years, public universities say the list of broke universities is shocking.

“It is true many universities are in the red and we do not even understand how they are surviving,” said Prof Francis Aduol, chairman of the committee of the vice-chancellors of public universities in Kenya.

FUNDING LEVELS

Statistics of the 2015/2016 universities funding show University of Nairobi received the highest funding at Sh6.3 billion.

Kenyatta University was second with Sh3.1 billion and Moi University got Sh2.8 billion.

Universities that received the lowest funding were Garissa University College (Sh241 million), Kirinyaga University College (Sh248 million) and Cooperative University College (Sh262 million).

“Public universities have long felt that the current funding structure by the Government is not effective. The figure is normally based on an average figure for all courses in all public universities. Thus the cost per course is insensitive to the peculiarities of each of the courses,” said Prof Aduol.

The 2016/17 budget estimates propose universities be allocated Sh43 billion. This means an additional Sh10 billion from the current Sh32 billion.

“This will be a good start because universities will start to stabilise even before the actual funding formula is implemented,” said Prof Aduol.

But even with the increase, only 10 of the 32 institutions will have nearly half of their budgets funded by the Government.

 

Only University of Nairobi, Egerton, Cooperative University, Murang’a University, Garisa University, Kisii University, Kenyatta University, Kirinyaga University, Taita Taveta University and Moi University will get 51 per cent funding.

The rest will get less than 50 per cent, with some getting a paltry nine per cent.

Speaking on behalf of the public universities, Prof Aduol said the institutions are finding it difficult to run and admitted that the recent report by the National Assembly’s Public Investments Committee (PIC) that found the institutions technically insolvent is true.

The PIC report released last week revealed most public universities are reeling under huge debts with negative working capital.

The report revealed Maseno University, Kisii University, Dedan Kimathi University, Pwani University, Multimedia University and University of Eldoret are technically insolvent.

For instance, the House committee found Technical University of Kenya (TUK) has current liabilities of Sh766 million against current assets of Sh322 million.

“We have arrears on Sacco dues, recovery dues, union dues, pension dues, insurance dues, unpaid creditors and students refund. Speak to other VCs and they will tell you worse cases,” said Aduol.

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i recently froze approvals of loan applications for public universities, saying most of them have many debts.

“I have suspended any further borrowing by universities and any one who wants to borrow money must deeply justify,” Dr Matiang’i recently said.

Vice chancellors who spoke to The Standard in confidence traced the financial troubles to skewed Government funding, which is still based on an old formula crafted in 1990.

They said the solution to the financial crisis lies in full implementation of the differentiated cost unit (DUC) report. Differentiated unit cost is the amount of money required by an institution to teach one academic programme per year per student.

The DUC report prepared this year by vice chancellors on funding of public universities faults the current formula and projects how each of the university programmes should be funded per academic year.

TEACHING REQUIREMENTS

“Analysis of the funding of the various public universities indicates the cost per unit student varies from university to university,” reads the April 2016 report.

If adopted, the revised funding formula says that to teach a dentist, the university offering the programme would require Sh600, 000 for only one academic year.

This money will be adequate to purchase all the necessary teaching requirements to teach a dentist, complete with remuneration of the lecturer.

Medicine shall require funding of Sh576, 000 per year while pharmacy will require Sh432,000.

Arts (general) would require the least funding at a cost of Sh144,000 per year. Applied humanities such as languages and psychology will cost Sh180,000 per year.

The report lumps together all university programmes into 14 clusters and pegs the unit cost for each, a marked departure from the current formula where all students are funded at a flat rate of Sh120,000 per year. Of this, Sh86,000 is tuition fees while Sh34,000 caters for student personal expenses, including accommodation, food and books.

The Government pays Sh70,000 in tuition fees and the students pay Sh16,000.

Under DUC, students would be required to pay Sh24,000 in fees, with a Government average contribution per child of Sh250,000.

If the new formula is fully implemented, the Government will require Sh65 billion to ease parents’fees burden and enhance quality of learning.

The Standard, however, established that the funding formula has been suspended because of ‘financial hitches’.

VCs yesterday welcomed the proposal by the National Treasury of increasing the funding by Sh9 billion in the next financial year.