Ministry of Education Seeks Bill Waiver for Public Universities’ Debts
The Ministry of Education is discussing with the Ministry of Finance and other stakeholders having an amount of the hefty pending bill facing public universities, which now totals over Sh75 billion, waived, according to State Department for Higher Education and Research Principal Secretary Beatrice Muganda Inyangala.
Dr. Inyangala stated that the Pending Bills Committee now has the report and is discussing with Treasury and other stakeholders through a committee formed to explore the possibility of allowing Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to waive the dues owed from statutory deductions like Pay As You Earn and National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) due to a lack of funds. This would enable universities to pay off other debts.
“We are also looking at escalating the issue of these pending bills to the Cabinet,” she went on to say.
The PS spoke to the media in Naivasha on Friday on the sidelines of a meeting with the local universities’ vice chancellors and Deputy Vice chancellors (academics) of all the universities in the country to discuss the preparations for the implementation of the competency-based curriculum (CBC) ahead of the entry of the first cohort under the revamped curriculum in 2029. It was organized by the Commission for University Education (CUE).
Ezekiel Machogu, the Education Cabinet Secretary (CS), recently stated that inadequate government funding has led to the accumulation of pending bills worth Sh 82 billion in the 32 public universities over the past five to six years.
At the time, the government used Differentiated Unit Cost (DOC), which required the government to pay 80% of the course’s total cost for all students, regardless of their socioeconomic status or course cost.
Due to inadequate funding, public colleges got only 68% of the total funding necessary during a six-year period, resulting in debt accumulation. Dr. Inyangala, on the other hand, claims that the new funding mechanism currently results in an increase of Sh38 billion in university budgets.
Dr. Inyangala stated that the extra financing aims to meet the increasing demands of enabling and accommodating growing student enrollments at institutions, as well as adopting new programs that satisfy job market expectations for graduates.
Kenyan universities enrolled approximately 563,000 students during the academic year 2022–23. The number had risen from around 562,100 enrolled in Kenyan universities at the start of the 2021/22 academic year. Public universities rely heavily on government subsidies to run their activities.
Public universities received Sh44,023,955,000 from the Treasury for the fiscal year 2023–24, falling short of the required Sh71,945,049,600 by Sh27,921,094,600. This leaves the varsities with a growing financial deficit of Sh49 billion.
President Ruto stated that the government will increase financial allocation to universities to Sh84 billion during the fiscal year 2023–24, a 56% boost, despite financial constraints at the Treasury.
During the media conference, the PS stated that the Council of University Education is in charge of developing a roadmap for the implementation of the CBC curriculum at universities, with the goal of implementing the CBC system by 2029, when the first group of students would begin attending university.
According to Dr. Inyangala, local higher education institutions continue to implement proper preparation steps to integrate their teaching curriculum with the new education system’s needs and creative expectations.
As a result, she added that universities are pooling their resources to provide routes for the implementation of CBC programs focusing on sports science, creative arts, science, technology, and mathematics (STEM) in order to cultivate young talent.
The PS claimed that the Commission of University Education (CUE) has written and adopted guidelines that will allow institutions to implement milestones that learners under the new system must meet before enrolling in tertiary institutions.
Professor Mike Kuria, CUE Chief Executive Officer (CEO), stated that universities continue to place a greater emphasis on teacher education guidelines and the assessment of existing curriculum to ensure that it meets the needs and demands of the CBC system.
In response to increased demand for additional funding from the exchequer, the CEO stated that local universities continue to lead the charge in resource mobilization as well as sourcing for alternative funding, such as research proposals and grant sourcing from within and outside the country, in order to assist the universities.
Prof. Kuria criticized the lack of professors and teaching staff with PhDs, highlighting that the government’s goal of accommodating 1,000 PhD students from local universities each year has not materialized due to limited capacity.
He did, however, say that universities are continuing to implement new measures to improve their human capacity, such as paying their teaching staff to pursue doctoral studies abroad in order to ensure the country fulfills quality requirements by lowering the teacher-student ratio.
The CEO emphasized the commission’s commitment to ensuring that institutions, regardless of location, provide the level of training required by the labor market.
Prof. Victoria Wambui Ngumi of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) stated that her institution will continue to lead the charge in developing and aligning systems, as well as teaching curricula, for the new CBC system.
She stated that the university continues to strengthen its partnership with other local and foreign institutions in terms of producing research proposals and expanding its funding base for additional resources.
Ministry of Education Seeks Bill Waiver for Public Universities’ Debts
