Stakeholders accuse State of acting too late

By Augustine Oduor

The Government has been accused of encouraging proliferation of fake middle level colleges due to lack of a regulatory policy.

Stakeholders have decried the high number of bogus colleges operating under the nose of government officers saying the proposed closure was merely reactionary.

As a result businessmen, some without proper understanding of educational investments have taken advantage of policy lapses to mint money.

African Public Policy Institute CEO Prof Inonda Mwanje said if the Government had a sound middle college master plan, the current situation could not have occurred.

He also faulted the competence of the College Inspectorate Agency saying if they inspected institutions most of them would have been deregistered long ago.

A paid up advert published in this paper by the Ministry of Higher Education Permanent Secretary Crispus Kiamba, lists a total of 111 institutions operating without registration for ‘immediate closure.’

If this directive is implemented, over 10,000 diploma students studying in these colleges will have their future disrupted.

But speaking to The Standard yesterday, Mr Mwanje said the Government messed when it allowed institutions of higher learning to take up some of the colleges.

Consumer protection

He said the move created a vacuum that saw many unscrupulous traders set up various institutions to offer some of the courses.

Mwanje said with a proper master plan in place, public private partnership would be made possible in provision of education with proper curriculum for the institutions.

Yesterday, panic and anger greeted the looming closure of the listed middle level colleges across the country. Parents who talked to The Standard threatened to sue the Government for failing to protect them for many years.

They said licensing is one of the key tools of consumer protection and wondered why the Government took too long to control the mushrooming institutions of learning in the country. Prof Auma Osolo, a conflict resolution lecturer at Maseno University, termed the impending closure a ‘catastrophe.’

He said if the Government is keen to better education standards in these institutions then it should have planned in advance and made people aware.

Prof Osolo said the directive issued last year was short and not enough.

He called for an overhaul of the education Act to take care of universal education as provided by the new Constitution.

Prof Osolo said closure of the institutions is not the solution to improving quality education in the country.

"With that done, it will also be easy to transfer credits between these colleges to higher institutions of learning, " he said.

Some 368 institutions have also been put on notice for operating with expired provisional certificates.

Managers of some of the institutions yesterday said they had lodged a formal request last year for renewal of their certificates and are awaiting receipt next week Monday.

They said their institutions successfully underwent through the mandatory assessment and said it is too early to publish the list.

"The list should have been published next month after proper updates," said Fatuma Khamis Ali, Principal Jamia Training Institute in Nairobi.

PS Kiamba however said once the processing of the certificate had been done the list of registered colleges shall be updated on a daily basis on the ministry’s website.