The planned merger of some public universities will go on despite the opposition from some players in Education sector.
Education CS George Magoha said universities must be looked at afresh as most of them were facing financial difficulties due to drastic drop in the population of learners.
Prof Magoha said strict measures taken by the Government to arrest cheating in examinations made it difficult for the institutions to admit more students as happened in the past.
"Some of the noise you are hearing is because people are thinking about themselves. It is the institutions that must be thought about. Our institutions require us to look at their operations afresh now. We used to be fed by fake results through cheating, but those fake results have now been cut off, meaning there are no people to populate the universities to the extent that they cannot sustain themselves," Magoha said at St Stephen’s Lwanya Girls High School in Busia County on Saturday.
The CS said all players must be ready to engage and agree on the way forward.
"Universities should discuss and get thematic areas. If Moi University is an expert in textile industry, would it be good if every other university did textile? It would not be very wise and that is where the conversation should start and stop," said the CS.
Magoha accused some people of politicising the said merger of universities to achieve selfish interests.
Kenya Universities Staff Union Secretary General Charles Mukhwaya had argued that the merger was against the law.
He said they were opposed to the merger because workers would have to be employed afresh.
