Universities ought to get finances right
Local universities are going through a rough patch. Whereas they are the citadels of knowledge and planning they have come out as institutions that hardly pre-empt situations and avoid pitfalls, or build on good tides.
Moi University is on the verge of collapse. A debt of more than Sh5 billion has pushed the institution to its knees.
So bad is the situation for the Eldoret-based university that if nothing is done fast it might be forced to close its doors.
Egerton University is an institution in Intensive Care. It has failed to pay its debts and currently cannot pay salaries.
A tussle with its teaching staff has seen activities paralysed as the management and lecturers engage in unending battles that only hurt students.
University of Nairobi and Kenyatta University, too, are in deep financial trouble that they rely on government subsidies to pay basic bills.
The administrators blame cuts in state funding for the woes. They also claim closure of satellite campuses as well as a drop in student population for the mess they find themselves in.
Not a single university has cited mismanagement as the cause of the dire straits. However, it is common knowledge that some of these institutions have been in the news for wrong approaches to management of education. From tribalism to corruption, the cancer eating up universities is not difficult to decipher.
Many institutions have been cited in audit reports as favouring tribe over competence. While universities have been at the heart of political activity worldwide, in Kenya it has not been proactive politicking but rather institutions getting into bed with dubious politicians.
The result has always been political interference in the running of the institutions. To mitigate against effects of mismanagement and financial indiscipline institutions have sold their assets; they have reduced the number of courses taught and some have closed some of the satellite campuses they had opened.
Even then, they have not come out of the mire. The main reason is because the moves have been cosmetic and haphazard. It is time the institutions rose to the occasion and lived to their reputation.
That said, the government must streamline funding to public universities. A society that compromises its quality of education is one that is inviting trouble.
Innovation is taught in the lecture rooms; let it be practised in the offices. We must not drive learning institutions to ignominy because of mismanagement.
