Why your child may never interact with a professor

PHOTO:COURTESY

The shortage of professors and senior lecturers is contributing to the diminishing quality of education in public universities, a new report has revealed.

It has emerged that there are only 648 full professors teaching in local public universities against a surging students enrollment of about 400,000.

This points to an acute shortage of qualified senior academic leaders needed to sharpen research papers churned out by the institutions annually.

A detailed document that contains the number of academic staff across all the 31 public universities reveals that your child may complete a programme without a personal interaction with a professor.

RAPID EXPANSION

According to data released by Commission for University Education (CUE), there are some 539,749 students enrolled across public and private universities. Of these, 461,818 students are enrolled in public universities, with only 77,930 enrolled in private institutions.

“Rapid expansion in students’ enrollment is increasingly putting pressure to institutions in the absence of a corresponding increase in academic staff capacity and space,” reads the report.

According to the data — exclusively obtained by Saturday Standard — the University of Nairobi has the highest number of full professors at 189. The university, which enjoys a comfortable lead on numerous rankings, has 227 associate professors and 389 senior lecturers. The university also has 625 lecturers and 264 tutorial fellows. The 2015/16 students enrollment data says UoN has 26,009 students.

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) has the second highest number of professors at 61 and a similar number of associate professors. The Juja-based University has 123 senior lecturers, 245 lecturers and 362 tutorial fellows. Data shows that the university has 12,029 students.

Maseno University, which has about 13,863 students, completes the top three public universities with the highest number of professors.

The Kisumu-based institution has 55 professors, 41 associate professors and 91 senior lecturers. The university also has 142 lecturers and 60 tutorial fellows.

Other universities with a relatively higher number of full professors are Moi University (51), Egerton University (40), Kenyatta University (38), Masinde Muliro University (34) and University of Eldoret (28).

Garissa University College — with 1,894 students — has no full professor. The university only has two associate professors without a single senior lecturer. It, however, has 12 lecturers and nine tutorial fellows.

Multimedia University (3,511 students) has the second lowest number of professors of only two. The university has only five associate professors, nine senior lecturers, 53 lecturers and 34 tutorial fellows.

LEAST NUMBER OF PROFESSORS

Kibabii University, Laikipia University, Kirinyaga University and South Eastern University of Kenya close the list of the institutions with the least number of professors. Each has three full professors.

Other universities with low number of full professors are Chuka University (5), Kisii University (4), Taita-Taveta University College (4), Rongo University (4) and Meru University of Science & Technology (4).

In total, the document reveals that there are only 648 full professors, 771 associate professors and 1,461 senior lecturers across all the public universities.

The public universities — with 248,917 students funded by the government — also have 3,842 lecturers and 3,102 tutorial fellows.

A recent state of university education report released by CUE said there is an acute shortage of professors in the country, with only 5,604 available in both public and private universities.

“In all categories of universities, there were very few faculty staff at senior lecturer or professor levels. The bulk of staff were at lecturer and lower levels. This is a cause for worry as it means that there are very few academic leaders to mentor scholars in the sector,” reads the 2016 report.

The report launched during the first biennial conference on the state of higher education further revealed that currently, one professor serves up to 98 students.

It further says that in some academic programmes, one lecturer teaches an average of up to 200 students, against the internationally recommended ration of 1:30.

ACADEMIC MENTORS

The CUE report says that the inadequate number of professors hampers development of a pool of academic mentors.

“The resultant capacity deficit means that the quality of education may be affected. This therefore calls for a concerted effort by the players to fast track staff development process,” reads the report. At the University of Nairobi School Of Journalism, for instance, only PhD students are allowed to teach. This means that Masters Holders are no longer allowed to teach at the school.

School of Journalism Post Graduate Committee chairman Dr Samuel Siringi yesterday said the school is acting on a firm instruction by vice chancellor Prof Peter Mbithi.

“The Vice Chancellor is firm on academic qualifications and we are implementing the standards as prescribed. As we speak, PhD holders can only supervise up to a maximum of five students. And for doctorate programmes, supervisors will only be allowed to oversee research work of a maximum of three students,” said Dr Siringi.

The CUE report says the academic staff establishment in both public and private universities stands at 16,318. Of these, 9,824 are in public universities and 8,693 lecturers have masters’ qualifications, with 656 having diploma papers.