Matiang'i radical reforms were inevitable

Examinations are contentious since they are a vital instrument for determining the student’s prospects for further education and employment.

Thus the previous happenings of massive cheating and the subsequent exaggerated scores tore at the core of our social and economic fabric in proportions that impact negatively on the workings and happenings of this nation.

Two years ago, at the annual Kenya Secondary Heads Association conference, I lamented about the ‘too many A’s’ schools were accumulating in the national examinations, particularly in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination, and yet the same candidates could not withstand the intellectual rigours of premier programmes at university.

I further argued against validating results that literally dismantled the long tested central limit theorem and the law of large numbers which are the two fundamental theorems of probability. Roughly, the central limit theorem states that the distribution of the sum (or average) of a large number of independent, identically distributed variables will be approximately normal, regardless of the underlying distribution. The importance of the central limit theorem is hard to overstate; indeed, it is the reason that many statistical procedures work.

And so for a school of 277 candidates to return results like 210As, 40A-s, 20B+s, 5Bs and 2C+s is statistically unattainable under ordinary circumstances. The bias towards the implied intelligence does not mirror both the entry marks profile of the candidates and the intelligent quotients of the given cohorts under examination. I am now statistically convinced about the results of the 2016 KCSE that were released on Thursday. That a school like Kenya High returned the following results out of 281 candidates: A: 21, A-: 97, B+: 69, B:55, B-:25, C+:12 and C:2. Other possible extraneous variables being held constant, a plot of the above results will be true to the central limit theorem hence affirming the validity of the results.

It is for the foregoing that we, as a nation, must rally behind the Ministry of Education’s reform and transformational agenda and ensure that what is going on at this level (in terms of curriculum reform, quality of learning and teaching and testing mechanisms) is on a continuum that spreads into the tertiary and university sectors.

The graduates of the basic education sector must be received at higher levels of learning that are alive to the imperatives of quality teaching, learning and research if the country is to actualise the aspirations of both Vision 2030 and the global expectations of the 21st century learner. The university sector must also therefore be subjected to a high quality criterion in relation to admissions, instruction, evaluation and research outputs. This will call for a national dialogue with a view of developing a marshal plan that will see our universities meet national and global expectations.

Among Kenya’s development challenges, none are more pressing than its social and economic travails. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) puts Kenya’s human development index value at 0.493. This shows Kenyans as having low human development (this is assessed according to longevity, access to knowledge and standard of living). According to UNDP poverty indicators, 60 per cent of the population suffers from multiple deprivations associated with poverty (in education and health) and 20 per cent of Kenyans live on less than Sh150 a day.

Despite these development challenges, Kenya has a growing higher education sector. The latest Kenyan government data shows that public and private universities in the country combined enrolled 506,083 students in 2015. The number of public universities has increased to 29 after the government upgraded seven university colleges into fully-fledged universities this year. In spite of this expansion, funding to universities was reduced by 6 per cent in the 2015/16 national budget. The mismatch between funding and enrollment growth will mean a heavier tuition burden for students, increasing the significant access issues that already exist for the marginalised, and adding to quality issues related to overcrowding, overburdened infrastructure and faculty shortages.

Soaring enrollment

The growth in enrollment has resulted in a situation where physical facilities cannot cope with the number of students. Libraries are overcrowded, books are outdated, journal holdings lag years behind, laboratories and equipment are outdated and inadequate, rooms in hostels are overcrowded, and academic staff are not compensated appropriately. In addition, massification; overcrowding; erosion of the non-university sub-sector due to acquisitions and takeovers by public universities in search of space; declining public funding; curricula that are not responsive to modern-day needs of the labour market; declining quality; crumbling infrastructure; poor governance; misallocation and poor use of available financial resources by some of the universities; ethnicity and rigid management structures pose major challenges to the provision of quality education in our universities.

This perhaps explains why universities offering professional courses are under siege from professional bodies’ standard criteria that at times assume more than utopian circumstances in our struggling institutions.

In addition, the number of academic staff in Kenyan universities has not kept pace with the increasing student population; the situation has deteriorated to a point where the balance between productivity gains and the quality of teaching is under threat. The student-to- lecturer ratio in Kenyan universities has deteriorated from 25:1 in 1986 to 62:1 in 2015. This, of course, has strong implications for quality of lecturer interaction with students as well as concerns about overall teaching–learning process.

Recent university rankings generally show that Kenyan universities – save for the three oldest public universities – are performing poorly. Ranking takes into account the teacher-student ratio; the number of international students; universities’ research outputs and general contribution to new knowledge; levels of training and application of science and technology; presence on the Internet and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs); volume of published material on the web; visibility and impact of the universities’ web pages as measured by the citations or links they receive; perceived quality; institutional statistics; surveys of students, and academic performance with respect to the size of an institution.

The above issues present a worrying situation for us all at university considering that we have an avoidable leverage on the economic and social well-being of the country.

Challenges attributed to scholarly research in most Kenyan universities include the descriptive nature of research and the lack of empirical rigour (in part due to a lack of resources); paucity of cross-disciplinary research endeavours; limited collaborations between practitioners and academics; limited linkage between research and the national development agenda; decreasing state subsidies; shortage of research expertise and experienced supervisors; high subscription costs of scholarly journals; limited publishing infrastructure; lack of incentives for researchers; inadequate mentoing frameworks; and weak or non-existent partnerships. Moreover, research done in Kenyan universities tends to focus on local or national development issues by putting an emphasis on applied research at the expense of basic and action research. Inadequately equipped libraries exacerbate this, with limited access to modern journals and the Internet. Due to inadequate experience and the lack of contacts, young faculty find it difficult to publish in international journals. Consequently, dissertations end up being stacked in libraries, leading to inbreeding.

Indeed, a recent World Bank report makes this point strongly by admitting: “Sub-Saharan Africa is at the bottom of almost every knowledge economy indicator. For instance, it contributes 0.07 per cent of global patents applications, an indication of the continent’s technological leadership.” It thus signals a long way to go to create the foundation for high-quality research, graduate education, and knowledge creation in our universities in Kenya.

As a measure towards survival and sustainability, universities in Kenya have shifted from the public-good paradigm to a market model that engages the neoliberal ideal of development, one in which the economic survival of the institution becomes paramount. Module II programmes have been a boon for universities in Kenya by increasing funding for and broadened access to university goods and services to consumers. Additionally, the Module II service has opened up access to students previously unable to obtain post-secondary education at public institutions.

The flip side to the Module II initiative is when prudent and frugal management and utilisation of the resources in a given institution is wanting. The quality of instruction is hampered and the desired outcomes of the learning processes as well as the impact of the graduates on society becomes insignificant in measure.

Urgent response

The phenomenon of missing marks, inappropriate admissions and inadequate contact hours at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels have continued to put into question the validity of the degrees offered. This requires an urgent and collective institutional and national response.

It is encouraging to note that some of the universities are now thinking strategically and aspire to produce highly skilled and globally competitive graduates; relate curriculum to labour demand; reconstruct the curriculum to meet Kenyan needs; support critical, basic research, theory building, experimentation and teaching; deal with emerging issues; lead in social transformation rather than act as elitist institutions; forge links with industry and government in order to become more innovative and relevant to society; and participate in or form part of government policy making organs. The creation of the Commission for University Education has made a remarkable difference towards the quality of programmes developed, teaching and provision of optimal physical facilities.

For Kenya to accelerate its development and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and Vision 2030, the government needs to increase its funding for universities within acceptable budgetary limits. Indeed, the challenges that face our education sector are enormous, but with a focused strategic approach, they can be overcome.

Prof Ayiro, PhD., is Acting Vice Chancellor of Moi University. [email protected]