Universities in drawn-out battle to acquire properties

By Patrick Githinji

A quiet revolution is taking place in the country, with institutions of higher education venturing into business to support their expansion.

The shift is particularly key to helping universities generate income internally.

A survey by Financial Journal shows various institutions sinking billions of shillings into mortar and brick as they spread campus and teaching centres across the country.

Kenyatta University bought Le Soleil Beach Hotel in Mombasa, and acquired a new building in the Nairobi Central Business District along Haile Sellasie Avenue now called KU Plaza.

The Limuru-based St Paul’s University acquired Church House at the junction of Moi Avenue and Haile Sellasie Avenue.

Moi University, headquartered in Eldoret, has since acquired Bazaar Plaza, which previously hosted Teachers Service Commission (TSC) on Moi Avenue.

The same university had earlier bought the collapsed Rivatex in Eldoret. The factory, which was meant for a teaching facility for students in textiles is already up and running.

Another new kid on the block, Kenya Methodist University (KEMU) acquired Posta Sacco on University Way.

Executive programmes

Last week, Prof Henry Thairu, Vice Chancellor of Inoorero University, said the university had acquired a new building along Dennis Pritt in Hurlingham to host classes of executive programmes.

"We are no longer waiting for people to come to us, rather we are going to them," Thairu said.

The trend has also seen regional and international universities pitching tent in the country. Universities from Uganda, Australia, US and the UK have premises in the country to facilitate distant teaching as well as recruitment of students to their universities.

Both private and public universities have in the recent past invested heavily in brick and mortar, buying and leasing properties across the country as they open campuses.

Despite these huge investments aimed at roping in more students, tuition fees charged by universities remain relatively high, with a dim hope that they will be slashed any time soon. In fact, there is ongoing debate that tuition fees should be raised.

Last month a team of technocrats, hired by the Government and the World Bank to look into the financing of higher education proposed that students pay more fees.

Tuition fees for the lowest priced course is Sh65,000 a semester while the highest go for up to Sh500, 000 a semester.

Commenting on the issue, ousted Kenya Methodist University (KEMU) Vice Chancellor Prof Mutuma Mugambi says studies show that tuition fees charged in local universities is in fact in line with the market rates.

Mugambi said far from expecting a reduction in tuition fees, there can only be an increment due to the need to up teaching and learning facilities to international standards.

Increase facilities

Discounting the notion that expansion projects are meant to subsidise tuition fees, Mugambi said such projects are designed to increase facilities in universities such as libraries, computer laboratory, as well as building of new schools.

However, he cautioned against universities’ drive for the bottomline, saying any profits that accrue from expansions should instead be taken as seed capital to be ploughed back into further expansions.

"Expansion is not buildings but people," he says.

Defending high tuition fees charged in Kenyan universities, Prof Thairu said it is partly intended to guarantee the quality of education.

"The fees charged must be related to the quality of education offered. Education may come cheap, but so may be its quality too," Thairu says.

"There are basic things which are universal and we should benchmark with the global trends and compare with the best rather than the third world countries," he said, adding that education should be expensive to give value to students seeking it.

Thairu urged institutions to invest in projects that will fund scholarship kitties to support needy students.

Experts say declining Government funding for higher education has pushed universities and colleges to pass the costs of running them to students in tuition fees.

According to Prof Thairu, a large portion of the fees goes towards the institutions’ recurrent expenditures, like paying staff salaries, a compensation that can hardly be said to be adequate.

Commercialisation, as the tuition-paying aspect in universities is sometimes referred to, traces its roots to the introduction of parallel degree programmes in 1998.

Originally opposed as compromising the quality of education, today it is the mainstay of many universities and other institutions of higher learning. This has particularly come in to plug financing gaps created by declining government allocations to higher education.

Government funding

But besides supplementing Government funding, these programmes have seen universities cater for a large number of students from the convenience of their areas.

Mombasa, for instance, an area that has lobbied for a university for a long time is today a host of several campuses and satellite teaching centres.

The new revolution of entrepreneurship in the institutions of higher learning is thus seen as the first step to self-reliance, and a move Thairu says will inform the thinking of students who go through the system.

"By the time students are through with training, they will be aware that just the same way Government cannot wholly fund university education, so is it even harder to provide jobs for everybody," Thairu says.

He says universities should look at investments that add value to the students rather than benefiting outsiders.

"KU can for instance train its hospitality students through the Mombasa-based campus just like Moi University can introduce their textile and biotechnology students to early practicals through Rivatex."

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