Lecturers angry over proposed salary reforms

Kenya is pushing to change the way universities are funded and how lecturers are paid, in reforms that have angered lecturers.

The Universities Bill wants state subsidies to public universities to be based on the courses they offer rather than on student numbers, and proposes that lecturers be paid according to the courses they teach rather than job grades.

The newly published bill, first prepared in 2009, has never been introduced in parliament due to opposition, but government says it will be tabled in the coming months.

But while the proposals have been rejected by lecturers, most educationists have hailed the legislation as the single strongest weapon in a government arsenal of action aimed at strengthening an ailing higher education sector mired in quality concerns and an admissions crisis.

The proposed change from lecturer pay based on job grades – seen as a way of introducing performance contracting in the university teaching fraternity – has annoyed lecturers. It would see those teaching law and medicine, for example, drawing heftier salaries than their counterparts in courses such as the arts.

“Let the government not try out these proposals with lecturers. Why are we trying to put a premium on some courses? What happens to universities offering arts courses?” asked Professor Muga Kolale, secretary-general of the Universities’ Academic Staff Union.

“What we are likely to see is some universities and lecturers suffering in terms of funding and pay respectively,” argued Kolale.

Among other things the bill seeks to bring all universities, public and private, under a common law and to repeal the parliamentary acts of seven public universities.

The bill also seeks to establish a kitty, to be known as the Universities Fund, to finance public universities. The fund would be financed both through the exchequer and from income generated from investments made by its trustees.

But lecturers say government should first adequately fund universities to meet the rising demand for admissions. For decades, government has been unable to bankroll universities to required levels because it has been weighed down by a budget deficit that hit US$2 billion this year – or 22% of the country's annual national budget.

Public universities rely heavily on state funding, and failure to keep up with enrolment growth will undermine their expansion plans, including the construction of campuses, at a time when classes are overflowing and more people are enrolling.

Employers too have been raising concerns that while the country has been releasing a growing number of graduates onto the market – estimated at more than 10,000 annually – most are half-baked, a signal of the faltering quality of learning.

The proposed bill, formulated by the Ministry of Higher Education, seeks to repeal eight pieces of legislation that currently govern public universities.

Should it get parliamentary approval, the Commission for Higher Education will be replaced by a Commission for University Education, mandated to deal with universities only, and not also tertiary colleges as is currently the case.

And while the existing commission has powers to register, regulate, supervise and inspect only private institutions, and even then lacks legal teeth against defaulters, the new legislation would give the new commission powers to extend its supervisory and regulatory roles to public universities.

Kenya has been gradually rolling out a series of reforms to revamp its higher education system under the National Strategy for University Education, to be implemented by 2015.

As previously reported in University World News, this will see the creation of new campuses in rural areas and funding upped to enable more students to enrol in the coming years, easing the pressure that has been piling up on existing universities.

Public universities have been laying blame on the government for growing challenges in the higher education sector, saying they have resulted from funding not matching student growth. This has undermined expansion plans, including the construction of new campuses.