Treasury official calls for rescue plan for public HE

The government in Kenya can no longer afford to fund university education. Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi says a drastic rescue plan is now on the table. It includes staff cuts, the sale of satellite campuses, and a controversial funding model that could lock out thousands of students from poor backgrounds, reports Mary Muoki for Citizen Digital.

The future of higher education in Kenya hangs by a thread, with the government admitting it is broke, leaving public universities gasping for breath under the weight of mounting debt. Kenya’s public universities are on life support. Years of underfunding, unpaid salaries, ballooning debts, and large student numbers have pushed once-prestigious institutions to the brink.

Now, the government has formally sounded the alarm, announcing an unprecedented overhaul to salvage the system. This resolve has sparked uncertainty among university staff countrywide, whose jobs have been placed on the chopping block.
Full report on the Citizen Digital site