The future of 150 Kenya Methodist University (KeMU) lecturers hangs in the balance after the institution served them with letters of termination.

The university, in a memo dated May 22, 2017 and signed by Vice Chancellor Kirmi Kiriamiti, indicated that the college was restructuring in order to improve its services and become more competitive.

The affected workers were served with the termination letters via their email addresses between May 22 and 23.

The affected campuses include Nakuru, Kisii and Nyeri. Students at the Nakuru campus are expected to vacate their premises located at Mache Plaza along Kijabe Street by May 30.

The three paragraph memo indicated that the university has put in place mechanisms through the office of the chaplains and the university counselor to provide those affected with pastoral and psychological support to help them cope and adjust to the changes. 

Improve services

“The university is undergoing restructuring changes in order to improve its services and become more competitive. To those who will be affected in one way or the other, the university has put in place mechanisms through the offices of the chaplains and the university counselor to provide pastoral and psychological support to help cope and adjust to changes,” reads the memo in part.

The Standard came across a letter emailed to one of the affected lectures in Nakuru who questioned the termination criteria the university used to sack them.

The lecturer who sought anonymity said the university went against their agreement.

“For academic staff, our appointment letters indicated that the employer or the employee is required to give a three months’ notice before leaving office. We don’t understand how this came to being,” said the lecturer.

The letter to the lecture indicated that her termination was done on account of redundancy.

“We regrettably wish to inform you that your employment with the university is terminated on account of redundancy. The decision was arrived at due to the dynamics affecting education sector in the entire Kenyan economy. Therefore, KeMU is undertaking restructuring process,” it read in part.