Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu has urged universities in the country to ensure that courses offered in their institutions remain relevant for the contemporary market industry to enable graduates to transition seamlessly to the world of gainful employment.
Machogu observed that efforts should consistently be made to regularly update university curricula and ensure they are not only good at local level but of international standards to also attract foreign students.
Speaking during a workshop for Vice-Chancellors of Public Universities and Principals of constituent colleges at the Whitesands Hotel, Mombasa, Machogu stressed the need to ensure the universities uphold the paramount importance of quality in education.
The CS said the incorporation of ICT in training and education not only provides the graduates with digital skills, but also opportunities for local and international jobs without travel.
He lauded the Ministry of ICT and Digital Economy through Konza Technopolis, where digital devices have been delivered to 99 TVET institutions and more than 19,000 trainees have been trained in digital skills and online jobs since its inception.
Machogu implored the universities and TVET institutions to forge collaborations with industries and seek relevant areas of partnership in the government development projects to increase employability of graduates and optimize the use of the Jitume labs for employment creation.
He Challenged universities to start early enough to reposition themselves for the arrival of Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) students from senior school in a few years’ time.
CS at the same time called on universities to work with communities and other stakeholders, to ensure that the transition rate from secondary schools to universities is raised.
Machogu said that the Ministry is concerned that only an average of 80 percent of all students placed in universities annually, end up reporting to their institutions.
Machogu said the government is trying to establish through the schools and community the whereabouts of the remaining 20 percent of students who have not yet reported to the universities.
According to the CS, Kenyan universities are witnessing a surge in the number of graduating students, which should also challenge the country, to put in place measures that guard against falling standards and quality of degrees awarded.
The CS said he has instructed the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS), to ensure that the placement process is completed early enough to give successful and eligible applicants time to apply for the government loans and scholarships under the new funding model.
Machogu further urged university leadership to devise methods of commercializing research and innovations so that they generate income for the universities.
He revealed that the government has so far disbursed Sh23.6 billion for loans and scholarships to first-year students, through the new Higher Education Funding Model.
The model was implemented in September last year, with the aim of correcting the financial health of universities.
Under the new model, beneficiaries are awarded loans, scholarships or both and students are classified into five bands depending on their families’ level of need.
The CS noted that the Ministry has also disbursed Sh17.5 billion for capitation to universities for the Second, Third and Fourth year students.
He called on university vice-chancellors, to ensure fees charged for various programmes in the universities remain as declared in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government, to avoid arbitrary changes in the cost of financing various courses.
“I call for the prudent use of the resources to ensure that all institutional functions, run efficiently,” he said.
The CS added that there is a need for the government to get value for money, since it has invested heavily in the university sector, imploring on universities to strengthen data management and surveillance systems.
Machogu noted that the universities fund has commenced the process of establishing a data management system, to enable a reliable data repository for the university sector.
“The scope of the system will be expanded to manage data at TVET level. The system will collect data for all the government-funded programmes in Kenya, and is expected to host the bio-data required to compute funding for students funded by the government,” he said.
By Chari Suche
