Unrest looms in universities due to student funding delays

Public universities and colleges in Kenya are facing a major financial crisis following the government’s delay in releasing funds for new students, writes Mathew Ndungu for People Daily. Almost three months since public universities, technical and vocational education and training institutions and other middle level colleges were ordered to admit students without any fees, the Ministry of Education, through the Universities Fund and the Higher Education Loans Board, is yet to release the money.

Managements of public universities and colleges are now grappling with the challenge of keeping the more than 275,000 students in their institutions for the last three months without money for operations. Of this figure, over 175,000 are undergraduate students, with an additional 70,000 enrolled in TVET (technical and vocational education and training) programmes who were scheduled to benefit from the loans, which fall under the Old Higher Education Funding Model.

Last week, Higher Education Loans Board Chief Executive Officer Charles Ringera attributed the delay in the disbursement of funds to a lack of resources. “Probably by next week things could be okay. Our main problem has been lack of money, but once parliament approves the supplementary budget sought by the National Treasury, we will sort out the universities,” Ringera said.
Full report on the People Daily site