Publish or get sacked, lecturers told

Public universities’ top management are pushing for the sacking of teaching staff who fail to publish scholarly articles in an academic year.

An education forum chaired by Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi heard Thursday that failure by all “tenured staff” to publish any peer-reviewed academic material renders universities’ teaching staff redundant.

The proposal was made during a stakeholders’ meeting that brought together universities’ vice chancellors, chairpersons of universities and semi-autonomous Government agencies.

“Apart from teaching and dissemination of knowledge, research is a mandate of universities. The institutions must come up with new findings and solutions that face the society,” Kisii University Vice Chancellor John Akama said.

Prof Akama said the institutions of higher learning have no business keeping “tenured staff” who cannot publish even an article to bridge the country’s knowledge gap.

“Lecturers, senior lecturers and basically all professors must be encouraged to publish scientific papers in peer reviewed journals in Kenya or beyond,” said Akama. He continued: “In all honesty. without any publication, someone tell me why we should continue having such staff at the university.”

Tanzania’s example

“...If you do not publish, then you should be asked to show cause why...,” added Akama.

Kaimenyi, who made reference to Tanzania and South Africa, supported the proposal. “In Tanzania if you don’t publish, then you show cause why you should not leave the university,” said Kaimenyi.

He, however, challenged universities to also motivate the lecturers to do research. “In South Africa, dons are incentivised to publish. Do not ask me how and where they get the money. It is the internally generated funds,” said Kaimenyi. The meeting dubbed ‘blue sky’ heard that lecturers hardly contribute even scholarly chapters.

“Lecturers should be producers of knowledge. We use books written in Europe and far away countries and some do not apply to Africa. We do not have enough home grown understanding of the issues,” the meeting heard.

The proposal comes after new university teaching standards were adopted by the Ministry of Education.

The standards show it will also be illegal to use scholarly titles that one has not demonstrated to have qualified for. And for those using honorary qualifications, they will be required to indicate the same against their names for clarity.