Hasty varsity mergers could mess up things

Education CS. George Magoha and PS.Belio Kipsang when they appeared before the Senate Education Committee at Parliament. [Boniface Okendo,Standard]

Anxiety is building up over the impending merger of universities. In recent months, we have witnessed vibrant debate, with some suggesting which universities should be closed and which should be merged. Exaggerations, half-truths and outright falsehoods have been peddled in the name of university merger. Let us sober up and deal with facts.

The fear of merger became real during the Budget speech when National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich announced “radical measures that will see some of the 32 public universities merge and some of their satellite campuses shut across the country” in the current financial year. Thereafter, Education CS George Magoha ordered universities to make necessary adjustments to manage their expenses. The directive was misinterpreted to mean commencement of the merger process.

University mergers cost money. Mergers are not done to address budgetary constraints. In the short run, mergers require additional financial injection by the Government. Selling staff retrenchment as a key feature of university merger is the surest way to stoke resistance from staff who are supposed to make it work.

The aims of university mergers are mainly academic and organisational. Financial considerations rank last. Mergers are long-term policy driven reforms to enhance productivity in universities. They are not administrative bullets for eliminating incompetent or corrupt managers.

University mergers cannot address incompetence, corruption, nepotism, cronyism and low staff morale in public universities. These are management issues that competent and independent councils can deal with.

A European Universities Association report suggests that when developing the rationale for a merger, management and cost-saving should not be the primary drivers. The main objectives of university merger should include: Enhancing quality of teaching and research by pooling of academic talent and infrastructure; realising economies of scale by increasing enrolment while keeping staff levels at modest level; enhancing competitiveness and reducing fragmentation in higher education.

Generally, mergers are driven by deeper ideological, intellectual and national aspirations beyond short-term challenges. Two African examples will suffice. University mergers in post-apartheid South Africa had the overriding objective of eradicating racial segregation in higher education, Africanisation of curriculum and increasing employability of graduates.

Consequently, segregated white, coloured and black universities were merged to reflect the rainbow ethos of the new multi-racial nation. The South African merger was implemented to cure the sin of apartheid. The merger had overwhelming popular support.

Rwanda, like the proverbial sphinx, rose from the ashes of genocide and decided to create a united, democratic and prosperous country. University mergers completed the broader national aspiration of strengthening national cohesion in the post-genocide era. Extensive consultation and consensus building involving stakeholders earned the policy popular support.

We are lucky as a country. We have opportunity to learn from achievements and failures of our forerunners. From the South African and Rwandan examples, it is apparent that merger is not uniform. Each country designs its own approach to fit her situation. We must learn from our past, understand our present and speak to our future as a regional intellectual powerhouse. Hence the question: What is the central aim of the Kenyan merger?

Financially stable

Supporters of merger argue that small universities are academically and financially weak and therefore uneconomical to run. Not all small universities have problems. The truth is that a good number of the so-called ‘smaller universities’ are efficiently managed, have young dynamic staff, are financially stable and receptive to change. Merging such promising universities with large, debt-ridden mega universities is like giving a healthy baby to a sick giant to breastfeed.

Merger requires extensive consultation and consensus building. It succeeds in a win-win situation. No university wants to lose out. Mergers are not forced on stakeholders as a quick fix. Averagely, mergers take between five to 10 years to materialise. Time is needed for consensus building among all stakeholders, especially students, staff, management, trade unions and other partners.

The Constitution insists on public participation and inclusiveness in Article 10 on national values and principles of governance. This is further reinforced by Article 232 on values and principles of public service which demands involvement of the people in the process of policy making. Consultation is therefore unavoidable for a major policy shift like university merger.

Most importantly, merger must address legal bottlenecks currently in place. The Universities Act 2012 does not provide for merger or consolidation. On the contrary, Section 26 of the Act directs the Commission for University Education (CUE) to “ensure the establishment of public universities in each of the counties, giving priority to counties that do not have universities.”

Amendments to the law are required to introduce mergers as one of the functions of CUE together with procedures for realising this. Such amendments will address the grey areas such as names of new outfits, fate of councils, students, staff, managers and liabilities. One may argue that there are sections of the law that can be stretched to provide for university mergers without amendment. I respectfully differ since such a move can successfully be challenged in court.

Recent studies reveal that South African university mergers have not delivered. While the government highlights success of the transformation, independent studies bring out what threatens to be a merger-mess. The substructure of racial segregation in higher education is still intact. Merged universities have also failed to achieve financial economies of scale as seen in the recent “fees-must-fall” demonstrations.

Mergers are best managed through consultation and consensus. CUE and Vice Chancellors Forum should come up with a framework for collecting and collating views from all stakeholders on university merger for support and successful implementation. A number of vice chancellors are, understandably, reluctant to embrace a rushed merger as it has no existence in law and may lead to merger mess.