State funding of universities to soar by 36% from July

Kenya plans to raise state funding of universities by 36% from July, in a push to boost access to higher education and to implement several key initiatives meant to grow the sector.

The country’s seven state universities and their 13 constituent colleges will receive much higher funding than they did in the current financial year even as Kenya battles to cope with economic strain that has eroded state revenues and seen the government struggling to meet urgent budgetary needs.

Last October, for example, the country sent its army to neighbouring Somalia to fight militants – an incursion that left a KSh12 billion (US$146 million) hole in its budget. This and other state costs have placed several development projects in jeopardy.

But the education sector appears to have emerged unscathed by the austerity spending the government hopes to adopt for the next fiscal year.

A government paper tabled in parliament on Wednesday, which will guide the annual allocation when East Africa’s biggest economy reads its 2012-13 budget in June, shows that universities will receive KSh60 billion (US$732 million), up from the KSh44 billion they received in the current fiscal year.

The increased funding will among other things help to build the Open University of Kenya, a new institution whose programmes are to be delivered through e-learning and print media to enable people to access university flexibly from their homes. The new institution is initially to have 10 regional centres, with additional access points later established across Kenya’s 47 counties.

But even with the increased higher education funding, university administrators are likely to find it difficult to deal with the surging number of students seeking admissions.

The country last year rolled out a double-intake plan to admit an additional 40,000 students over the next three years. But it is struggling to raise the KSh7.8 billion (US$95 million) needed for adequately bankrolling the additional number of students – meaning the plan faces a great risk of failure.

“The sector’s biggest challenges include inadequate infrastructure and staffing, slow pace of ICT integration and dealing with accelerated admissions to universities,” said Finance Minister Njeru Githae in his budget policy statement for 2012-13.

“The government will seek to address these challenges by providing enhanced education and training opportunities, building capacity in industrial training and reforming the university education system.”

Education experts said more funding would be needed to enable institutions to expand their educational and boarding infrastructures and to hire extra lecturers.

Enrolments in Kenya’s universities currently stand at 183,497 students, and the number is expected to hit the 200,000 mark by next year under the double-intake plan and following the creation of the Open University and the Pan-African University. These two institutions are set to receive a share of the increased funding.

Last year, the government upgraded several tertiary institutions into university constituent colleges to help absorb more students, but the institutions have been struggling with under-financing. The Treasury said the additional funding would also be used to help stabilise these colleges.

Faced with higher student numbers and inadequate state funding, Kenya’s public universities have been venturing into commercial activities to raise money to run programmes.

The University of Nairobi has, for instance, created a commercial unit to run income-generation activities including consultancy work. “You can’t increase fees, as this would elicit negative vibes and would shut down the university,” said Professor George Magoha, vice-chancellor of Nairobi, in a recent interview with University World News.

The university – Kenya’s biggest in terms of student numbers – has had to rely on self-sponsored students on fee-charging ‘parallel’ courses for earnings. Last year, this stream raised US$48 million for Nairobi.

The Higher Education Loans Board, the agency that disburses loans to students on behalf of the government, is seeking an additional KSh1.5 billion to meet its current loan demand.

It is due to be reformed, beginning in July, and renamed the Higher Education Financing Agency. The new agency will start offering loans to students in mid-level colleges, a departure from the current norm where it only disburses funds to students in public and private universities.