Ministry wants varsities to renew course approvals every six years

Vice Chancellors' Committee Chairman Daniel Mugendi. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Universities could soon be required to renew approval to teach academic programmes after every six years, if a proposal by the Ministry of Education is adopted.

However, this proposal has sparked controversy, with university leaders protesting the high fees charged by agencies for approval. According to the Vice Chancellors' Committee, there are at least 30 different agencies demanding fees for approval of academic programmes.

The vice-chancellors now want the Commission for University Education (CUE) to be the sole body responsible for quality control after university senates have approved their respective curricula.

Currently, accreditation of university courses is done by CUE and various professional bodies but the process is only done once. The VCs argue that accreditation by professional bodies is a duplication of roles.

"Entrench in law that the only accrediting and quality control body of academic programmes should only be CUE after the university senates have passed the curricula," the committee Chairman Daniel Mugendi said.

Prof Mugendi spoke during a meeting with stakeholders to deliberate on the review of laws governing the sector.

He termed the fees demanded by regulatory agencies as "tremendous stress" on university finances.

"The regulating bodies/agencies are charging multiple and exorbitant fees to do the traditional role of university senate in curriculum development and delivery," Mugendi said.

Currently, universities pay Sh320,000 for accreditation of each programme to CUE and Sh1,000 for quality assurance per student.

The universities further pay Sh900,000 for quality audit to CUE. The Standard established that universities fork out up to Sh1.6 million to the Council of Legal Education (CLE) for approval of the law programme.

To teach a nursing course, the Nursing Officers Council of Kenya (NOCK) charges Sh500,000 for accreditation while Clinical Officers Council (COC) charges Sh420,000.

The Board of Architecture and Quantity Surveyors charges Sh1.2 million while the Engineers Board of Kenya charges Sh300,000 for programme accreditation.

Mugendi revealed that the high fees have seen many universities shun Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics academic programmes. He explained that the programmes are the most expensive to run with respect to space, equipment and faculty ratio requirements thus extra charges make them untenable.

The impact of the charges, he said, has led to duplication of academic programs in universities largely in humanities because they are cheaper. "In the prevailing circumstances, it is becoming more difficult for universities to align their core mandate of training, research and innovation to the national agenda," reads the presentation by the Vice Chancellors Committee.

In the past, some professional bodies refused to recognise the degrees of students from some institutions that had not complied with their standards.

In 2020 for example, the Engineering Board of Kenya released a list of universities it recognises as training schools for engineering.

This excluded Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Meru University, South Eastern Kenya University, Technical University of Kenya and the University of Eldoret despite the institutions having engineering programmes.

In 2011, the Engineers Registration Board declined to recognise engineering degrees from Egerton, Kenyatta and Masinde Muliro universities. A similar fate has befallen law graduates from some public and private universities after the Council of Legal Education rejected their papers.