We scrapped courses to help students graduate, says VC

University of Nairobi's Vice Chancellor Prof Stephen Kiama has for the first time come out to defend the institution's decision to scrap some of its course units weeks ago.

Speaking while at campus, he said some of the courses including HIV/AIDS, were affecting studies of students and forcing the university to spend too much on them.

He said most students missed out due to missing marks and this affected their graduation thus keeping them in school yet they had finished their studies.

"When those common undergraduate courses were developed there was a need, the University has been incurring high costs due to the delivery of the courses while some students have missed graduations because of missing marks in these courses," the renowned vet said.

These scrapped courses include Communication skills, Fundamentals of Development and their Applications, Human Health, Law in Society, Environment Science, Chemistry and its Applications, Science and Technology in Development, Elements of Philosophy, and Elements of Economics and HIV/Aids.

This comes as tertiary institutions in the country are facing cash crunch and are looking for any possible way to cut down expenses.

However, for UoN students, studies on sexual reproduction will be handled by the dean of students.

"We recast and gave the office of the Dean of Students the mandate of teaching these soft skills and life skills through the skills centre of excellence virtually," he added.

Better still, UoN is the first university in the country to open a gender desk where students and the staff can report on gender-based violence, rape and other forms of abuse perpetuated in the institution.

The desk will also provide psychological care to the affected.

This seeks to solve gender-based violence cases among university students who find it hard to report outside the institution.

In the recent past, cases, where university students from different institutions have been involved in love triangle cases, have been reported and the desk seeks to solve such issues before they go out of hand.