Reform or we force you, Magoha tells varsities

Education CS George Magoha during a vetting process. [Boniface Okendo/Standard]

Managers of public universities now have two weeks to make tough decisions that would lead to sending a number of staff home and also scrap some courses.

Vice-chancellors also have the short period to recommend which of their universities and constituent colleges will be merged or shut down in the grand reforms plan backed by the Cabinet.

Details of the close-door meeting chaired by Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha revealed that the changes are now inevitable, coming just a week after the National Treasury gave green light for the reforms.

The three key areas of the reform discussed were based on staff rationalisation, duplication of courses and mergers of colleges.

“The tough decisions will come with some of you losing jobs. You may not be VC’s, but you will still have your salaries,” Magoha said on the impending reforms.

This means that the managers must now make tough choices that will reduce the number of VCs, their deputy and college principals.

There are about 28,000 workers in the public universities.

Currently, Kenya has 74 universities, with 31 of them being public universities and six public constituent colleges.

There are also 18 private universities, five private constituent colleges and 14 institutions with Letters of Interim Authority.

This means that there are some 31 VCs across the public universities. Each university has up to four DVCs and all constituent colleges have principals as managers.

Report from the closed-door meeting shows that Magoha reined in on the VCs to drive the reforms agenda, failure of which they would be compelled to comply.

Under the staff rationalisation, Magoha wants the VCs to identify the staff to be sent home and positions to be declared redundant with a clear staff exit plan.

On duplication of academic programmes, Magoha told the VCs to identify the courses to be scrapped, those to be transferred to other institutions with strong niche and programmes that will be merged.

The CS scoffed at plans by South Eastern Kenya University (Seku), for instance, to mount law programmes yet that was not its strong niche.

He said universities strong in arts would be allowed to specialise in the area while those strong in sciences will be empowered to teach their core fields.

The rest of the scattered programmes will be merged and some moved to the relevant institutions.

And on the merger of colleges, Magoha wants VCs to identify which of their institutions must be collapsed into one to create stronger universities.

He gave an example of Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology and Bondo University as possible mergers to Maseno University.

“If you cannot lead the reforms train, then we shall do it for you and it shall be painful,” said Magoha.

University Education PS Collette Suda supported the tough stand of the CS.

The National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich last week gave the strongest indication on the looming reforms.

“We shall implement radical measures that will include merger or closure of some universities and university campuses that are not able to sustain their operations against the number of students admitted or degree courses offered,” Rotich said.

Status report

Sources at the meeting yesterday said that Magoha questioned why the VCs had not furnished his office with a report on the proposed reforms plan following their meeting on Status of University Education conference held on May 6.

During the meeting, Magoha asked the Commission for University Education to prepare a report on the status of university education in the country and hand it to him by July 31.

The CUE report is expected to largely dwell on status of academic programmes mounted by the universities.