Bill will radically alter varsity education and training

By KEN RAMANI

Recently, Higher Education, Science and Technology minister, Prof Margaret Kamar, decreed that the Commission for Higher Education (CHE) should immediately inspect private universities as one way of ensuring quality.

As much as the intention for inspection is good, however, it goes against the spirit and letter of the new constitution, which discourages discrimination of whatever form. Education being a human right, why, pray, should only private universities be inspected?

Who says the internal inspection by public universities is foolproof?

One may argue that the public universities are established by Acts of Parliament and the Universities Act of 1985 on which CHE was established, insulated the public institutions from inspection.

However, considering that we have a new constitutional order in place, this provision is likely to be challenged in a court of law sooner than later.

Once the proposed universities Bill that is still in the works is enacted and enforced, the management and administration of university education in Kenya will be radically altered.

For the first time, the public universities will be put under a sharp microscope and will be inspected by CHE.

In fact this will guarantee the public institutions’ survival in the ever-changing landscape of research and training through independent inspection.

The composition of the membership of CHE commissioners will be pre-determined once the Prof David Some taskforce working on the finer details of the Bill makes its recommendations.

The Bill also seeks to ensure all universities — both public and private, are chartered. To be given a charter, the universities must first proof that they have in place the facilities and staff numbers required to mount certain proposed or existing programmes. In fact this is what USIU, Daystar, Mount Kenya, KeMU, Catholic, Baraton, Kabarak and Strathmore, among others, were subjected to before they were awarded charters.

The issuance of a charter is a world-wide practice and even closer home, Rwanda, is doing it to both public and private universities.

Political instrument

The way things stand now, the public universities are established by an Act of Parliament, which, sadly, is not internationally recognised like the charter is and is, therefore inferior.

A charter is more superior instrument of university management unlike an Act of Parliament which is a legal and political instrument through which a university is established.

Had the public institutions been subjected to inspection by an independent agency, the rejection of graduates who pursued medical laboratory technology, education, engineering, clinical medicine and law at some of the public universities would have been avoided.

Some cohorts of the graduates have been forced to take one extra academic year to gain skills required before being recognised by the relevant professional regulatory bodies.

This has not only embarrassed the graduates but also thoroughly inconvenienced their parents and sponsors.

A few years ago, the government appointed a universities inspection committee led by Prof Kabiru Kinyanjui.

The committee made several observations one being the understaffing in critical disciplines and made other brilliant recommendations which, sadly, to date, have not been implemented.

The good document is still gathering dust in Jogoo House.

It is my considered opinion that if tax payer’s money has to be spent well, the public universities must be independently inspected to assure quality is not compromised by political expedience.

The tenacity with which the public institutions are literally swallowing middle level colleges has raised concern that we might be staring in the face a potential meltdown in the quality of our university education. The rapid expansion has thrown caution to the wind and, in the absence of an external and independent body, things can only worsen.

It beats logic that all these years, policy makers have not seen the sense in independent inspection of public universities. The medical regulatory bodies have been closing down even public facilities that do not meet the basic requirements to operate as hospitals on the basis that they may compromise the health of the unsuspecting patients.

Why not the public universities that are also churning out medical practitioners?

Quality of graduates

Although the National Association of Private Universities of Kenya (NAPUK) has cried foul over certain clauses in the Bill regarding inspection, in fact, the Bill generally makes graduates from private universities more attractive in the labour market compared to those from public institutions that are a law unto themselves and nobody, but themselves can guarantee the quality of the graduates.

If they must get value for their money, employers need to be assured that the job seekers indeed went through rigorous training whose quality was assured by a competent and independent body.

Otherwise inspecting private universities alone is undermining the future of university education in Kenya.

The graduates from both public and private universities all filter into the same labour market. Then why subject them to different regimes of regulations during their training?

The writer comments on education and social issues.