Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has reaffirmed the government’s commitment to working with private universities.
The CS says the institutions play a critical role in expanding access to quality education and complementing the State’s efforts to achieve equity in higher education.
Speaking at International Leadership University-Kenya on Thursday during the dedication of the university’s Kitengela campus and the installation of Prof. Kivutha Kibwana as Chancellor, Ogamba defended the government’s proposed reforms to higher education financing and challenged critics to provide alternative solutions.
“The Government will continue to work with and support both public and private universities in view of their vital role in advancing quality education, research and innovation and nurturing leadership for national development,” Ogamba said.
The CS said Kenya’s existing higher education financing system was no longer sustainable amid rising demand for university education and increasing pressure on public resources.
He argued that the proposed reforms were intended to change the way the country views investment in students by linking education financing to their future careers and earning potential.
“We said that education is an investment, not just a social good. We decided that we were not only funding the student, but also their future career,” he said.
Ogamba cited students pursuing professional courses such as law, medicine and engineering as examples of how the proposed model could work. He said the government would invest in students while taking into account the careers they were likely to pursue after graduation.
“For instance, law students will become lawyers and medicine students will be doctors. So we said, if it is an investment and we are funding an engineer, the means testing should be for the engineer,” he explained.
According to the CS, the proposed approach could also make higher education financing more attractive to private-sector investors. By presenting education as a bankable investment, he said, the government could mobilise additional resources to complement public funding.
“What that did was to open doors to the private sector to view the model as a bankable investment. We are therefore able to fund higher education of students based on what they will become,” Ogamba said.
His remarks come as the government pursues legislative changes to the financing framework through the proposed Tertiary Education Placement and Funding Bill, 2026. The proposed law seeks to reorganise the management of student financing and establish a new authority responsible for coordinating loans, scholarships and other forms of tertiary education support.
Ogamba maintained that combining government resources with private-sector financing would give the State greater capacity to support students admitted to institutions of higher learning while easing pressure on the Treasury.
He also took issue with political leaders who have criticised the government’s funding model without presenting alternative proposals.
The CS urged critics to move beyond political condemnation and contribute practical solutions to the challenges facing higher education.
“We need you speaking the truth to power respectfully and correctly with a solution towards what you are challenging. We do not want a society where people just speak for the sake of it,” he said.
Ogamba condemned what he described as the growing ethnicisation of Kenyan politics, warning that divisive political rhetoric could negatively influence young people.
He argued that many Kenyans have grown up studying, working and living alongside people from different communities, making ethnic attempts to divide society increasingly disconnected from their experiences.
“We are being told every other day by leaders to hate each other, to hate our country, to hate the next person,” Ogamba said.
He questioned political messages urging communities to keep others away, saying such rhetoric was confusing to a generation that has already embraced a more integrated Kenya.
“So when you tell us don't touch this or the other, you shock us because already we have touched,” he said.