CUE report reveals how Jkuat broke degrees rules
An inquiry into doctorate degrees offered at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Jkuat) has shown that some of sampled progress reports lacked details of students accomplishment in terms of methodology, literature review and analysis of data collected.
A report by Commission for University Education (CUE) indicates that unqualified remarks like ‘well-done, good progress and satisfactory’ were prevalent.
The progress report tool also required students to submit a progress report every four months but this was not fully adhered to.
In some other instances, all progress reports were submitted when the student was due to submit the thesis, a situation which defeats the purpose of progress reports and is in violation of Statute No. 10 of Schedule IV (a), which requires a candidate to submit quarterly progress report.
Fair manner
As far as supervision of PhDs was concerned, the commission established that students had been assigned at least two supervisors.
“While the practice of students proposing preferred supervisor was considered by the university to be a good practice, this was found to be in contravention of Statute No. 16 Schedule IV (a) which provides that allocation of students for supervision to academic members of staff be done in a fair and equitable manner taking into consideration the area of specialisation, funding, teaching load and other related research activities,” read the report.
On quality of supervision, CUE observed that many of the supervisors were carrying a supervision load that is beyond the recommended threshold of three PhDs and five masters at any given academic year.
