Armed with a Sh500 million war chest in funds, partly raised through a private placement, the Kenya School of Professional Studies is set to expand its facilities after getting the green light to operate as a private university.
The Tanzania Commission for Universities, or TCU, has finally acted against a branch campus of Uganda’s Kampala International University, ordering the Dar es Salaam-based institution to stop offering masters and doctoral courses.
Concerned that a growing number of students are enrolling in poor-quality private universities and diploma mills, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda are working together to develop more stringent...
Concerned that a growing number of students are enrolling in poor-quality private universities and diploma mills, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda are working together to develop more stringent oversight of their higher-education systems.
However, the Kenya Association of Private Universities (Kapu) expressed concerns that by implementing the unit costing in public universities, fees charged in their institutions would be affected because of the forces of a free-market.
Kenya has enacted higher education reforms aimed at streamlining and improving the management of university affairs. The Universities Act 2012, finally signed into law by President Mwai Kibaki this month, introduces far-reaching changes.
Nearly 600 colleges are registered to operate in Kenya, but only 10 have been accredited to offer programmes on behalf of foreign universities, higher education regulators have said.
Mount Kenya University deputy vice chancellor Evans Kerosi said the move will increase the number of students in private universities to be admitted through a joint admission board.
Surging demand for higher education ought to have given Kenya a good reason to clean up its universities. But as the number of private and public universities has grown over the past seven years, from 17 to 24 private and five to seven public institutions, so have concerns over the quality of learning.
Kenyan universities edged out their East African counterparts to emerge top in a new survey focused on the adoption of information and communication technology in higher education. Private universities outperformed public institutions and Uganda’s Makerere University was placed first.
Kenyans be proud to learn that their country is the regional hub of private universities. The fact that in the past 30 years the number of private universities in Kenya has grown from only two in 1980 to 27 currently, speaks volumes about the entrepreneurship spirit of Kenyans.
Private Universities in Kenya receive no funding from the government for running expenses. They rely on tuition fees to meet recurrent and developmental costs.
Despite growing by leaps and bounds in the past 10 years and expanding higher education access to thousands of needy learners, private universities in Kenya continue to shun science, technology, engineering and mathematics – STEM – courses, leaving the heavy financial and infrastructural burdens of these subjects to poorly funded public institutions.
Kenya’s private university investors are lobbying the government to change the law to allow them to attract high-performing school-leavers – currently the preserve of their public rivals – and they have the overwhelming support of students.
The draft bill also implies that private universities could benefit from public funding should the government deem this to be necessary and allocate money to them through parliament. “A private university shall account for any funds received from the government,” says section 50 of the legislation.
Private education giant Educor is set to become the first South African institution to set up branch campuses outside the country as it expands its operations into four new African countries under its well-known Intec and Damelin brands.