NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 5 – Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu now says the government will no longer fund public universities and colleges urging them to find ways of generating their own-sourced revenue.
Machogu said institutions of higher learning must generate their own revenue to survive as opposed to relying on funds from the government.
“We are encouraging that they must generate their own revenue because the ex-checker as it is right now is not going to be able to continue funding more because in Kenya education takes 25.9pc, so we have to find other ways of creating and generating revenue for universities and they have to look at other revenue streams,” Machogu told journalists Saturday,.
He, however, noted that a number of universities will have a challenge because they are used to public funds from the exchequer.
“I am going to move around each and every university in Kenya because a number of our universities are faced with problems, particularly finance, you get them complaining about under-funding,” added the CS.
Most public universities are facing a serious debt criris.
The Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms team had initially called upon Kenyans to air their views and recommendation on funding of tertiary institutions.
While paying a courtesy call at Governor Mutahi Kahiga’s office on Wednesday, Purity Karabai Mbaabu who is a member of the team said the forum is inviting views from both public and relevant education stakeholders in regard to funding institutions of learning and availing financial help to learners from poor family backgrounds.
Last year, data from the UFB showed there was a shortfall in capitation for public universities that had almost doubled within two years, from Sh13 billion in 2020 to Sh. 27 billion in2021 translating to a 100.7 per cent jump.
The report also showed that capitation per learner had declined by up to Sh35,616 during the same period with average allocation per student standing at Sh135,244.88 by December 2021 down from Sh170,861.63 in June 2020.
This compelled the State Department for Higher Education to back plans by university vice-chancellors to hike fees to enable the public institutions to remain afloat amidst dwindling funding from the Treasury.
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