Over 8,000 non-PhD lecturers face job loss, demotion

More than 8,000 lecturers in Kenya risk losing their teaching jobs or being demoted in the next two months as a government directive setting a new appointment threshold for tutors takes effect.

The directive, announced in early 2014 and expected to kick in from January 2018, requires that all university lecturers hold PhDs. Effectively, those without PhDs will only be hired as tutorial fellows, depriving them of their current positions.

It is estimated that close to 8,500 lecturers do not have PhDs, meaning they could be forced to take up 'lower' positions in institutions of higher learning. Government statistics indicate that the country has slightly over 400 full professors, 600 associate professors and less than 7,000 PhD holders.

Commission for University Education data show that the current professor-to-student ratio stands at 1:98. Out of a total of 16,318 university lecturers, 8,693 have only a masters degree while 656 have diplomas.

The regulations by higher education regulator the Commission for University Education, or CUE, also mean the scrapping of the position of assistant lecturer, a post frequently held by non-PhD holders. Holders of masters degrees, no matter the years of experience or number of publications, will only be appointable as junior lecturers and tutorial fellows.

The teaching fraternity is generally opposed to the directive, which the government says will rid the country of unqualified tutors in the universities to raise the quality of learning.

University World News has learnt that while the CUE is under pressure to suspend the guidelines, the regulator is keen for a January rollout, potentially setting the scene for a major shakeup as the New Year approaches.

In April, CUE Chairman Professor Chacha Nyaigotti-Chacha hinted at a possible review saying the rules, if not well observed, could work against the sector’s progression.

“We do not want to set regulations that will create a race so that universities rush to create fake doctorate degrees in order to beat the deadline,” said Chacha.

Educationists have opposed the directive, terming it retrogressive. “A PhD is not a sine qua non to success in university teaching and research. Many universities in the developed countries still employ lecturers without PhDs. The entry point is a masters degree and many are ranked highly in terms of quality teaching, research and service to community,” said Professor Maurice Amutabi, a Fulbright scholar and vice-chancellor of Lukenya University, in a recent commentary in a local daily newspaper.

But senior people within the commission who spoke to University World News on condition of anonymity intimated that the implementation will go ahead as scheduled.

The possibilities of some tutors being demoted could not come at a worse time as lecturers in public universities are currently on strike, pressing for better pay and the implementation of an earlier collective bargaining agreement.

Kenyan lecturers, statistics show, are among the lowest paid in the region yet they handle some of the largest classes – a situation that has for years stoked disputes between academics and the government. For some academics, salaries are to be doubled under the collective bargaining agreement.

Low pay is being blamed for an exodus of lecturers from Kenyan universities, not only to Europe and North America, but also to neighbouring countries such as Botswana, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda.

The strike by lecturers is seen by labour economists and unionists as a signal that Kenyan workers are becoming increasingly disenchanted by the rising cost of living, which has hugely eroded their purchasing power.

The new regulations mean that lecturers will now have to take on bigger workloads, possibly compromising quality even further.

Over the past few years, universities across the country have been on a recruitment drive, hiring scholars on part-time contracts. Private universities have better lecturer-to-student ratios.

The game-changing guidelines will also raise the requirement for one to be appointed to the position of professor. Currently, academics are required to accumulate only 10 application points from scholarly writing to attain the coveted position. With the new rules, a professor will need to have accumulated a minimum of 60 points.

For an academic to be appointed associate professor, the guidelines will require them to have at least 48 publication points’ worth of scholarly writing, up from the current eight points. They also must have supervised at least four postgraduate students, while a professor must have supervised at least five PhD students.

At inception in 2013, the guidelines were part of a wider government plan for universities to produce at least 1,000 PhDs every year in order to produce the next generation of academics, alleviate the lecturer shortage and provide high-level skills.

But this target now looks unrealistic. According to the CUE, public universities have produced 1,203 PhDs since 2012.

Over the same period, institutions have produced 16,561 masters graduates. Over 150,000 students have graduated in the past four years with bachelor degrees.