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State freezes opening of new varsity campuses

Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 07:31 | By
Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha. Photo/PD/File

Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha has frozen opening of new satellite university campuses and vowed to shut “unrealistic” ones. 

He said the mushrooming of universities in the last 10 years has compromised the level and quality of education in institutions of higher learning.

Magoha’s move deals a blow to politicians clamouring for the creation of universities in their counties.  

Magoha also censured universities for their obsession to produce more PhDs that don’t add value to new knowledge or offer any challenge in the scholarly world.

“Having a PhD means nothing, and it is not right to say that you must be a teacher because you have one. If today, we were to put our professors to test about 50 per cent of them will fall out,” he said. 

Magoha stated: “It is  about time we stopped talking of the numbers of PhDs. Let’s have numbers that can stand the  test of time.” 

Clamour for universities

Baringo Governor Stanley Kiptis and Tiaty MP William Kamket are  among politicians, who have been pushing for the establishment of a university in the region.  

Last week, during the burial of retired President Daniel arap Moi, they urged President Uhuru Kenyatta to establish a university in Baringo County in remembrance of the late president.

But yesterday, Magoha, a former University of Nairobi Vice-Chancellor, said it was pointless to have more universities that release many graduates to the job market without requisite skills and technical mastery. 

“Perhaps, like other African countries, in Kenya, we have forgotten what a university should look like. A university is not a teaching centre but a research institute,” he said.

The CS was speaking at an education conference held at a Nairobi hotel on improving higher education performance dubbed “regional knowledge sharing forum” jointly organised by the Education ministry and the World Bank.

He pointed an accusing finger at university vice-chancellors who he accused of abrogating their roles and succumbed to pressure from politicians who “know nothing about university education.”

“I say this without any fear of contradiction, they (politicians) don’t know how a university like Moi or Kenyatta University was established in yesteryears,” he said.

He added: “Nowadays, you find people saying, I think we need a university in this village, I think we also need another one there, the danger is that there is deepening silence among university leaders and some of them have decided to dance with them... you should be ashamed if you are one of them.”

Magoha said university dons are in a better position to advise the politicians pushing for creation of universities in their regions. He noted that some may have not gone to school “but maybe by the grace of God, he acquired one or two diplomas and by the very grace again got a degree from one of the universities somewhere”.

Quality drop

“Now, he comes to tell us, we need a university here and there. The quality of education will drop, if not addressed,” he advised.

In the latest global university rankings, Magoha revealed that Kenyan universities shadowed their counterparts in South Africa and Egypt. 

“It is  a big shame for our country, University of Nairobi is number 11 in Africa and then 1,000 globally.  Sometimes back, South Africa was bold enough to ask its scholars, to look at their university system, they did not ask the politicians, they asked scholars and they ended up downsizing their  universities ,” he said.

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