Realising the dream of university education for all Kenyans

PHOTO:COURTESY

Education is the fuel of a nation’s economic growth, a driver of invention and innovation and a necessary platform for job creation. This is why expanding the opportunity for Kenyan youth to further their education and receive university degrees was at the forefront of the Jubilee-led government agenda.

Four years ago, we promised to expand access to and raise the standard of education in the country with the aim of increasing the transition rate from primary to secondary education and then into the tertiary and university level.

We also pledged to strengthen the Commission for University Education (CUE) to effectively manage the quality of our universities, teaching and research, and encourage them to invest in research, technology and innovation and reverse the trend of turning middle-level colleges into universities.

ACCESS IMPROVED

Over the last few years we have massively increased access to university education, and only last month it was revealed that the Government will fund university and college education for 116,718 students who sat last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KSCE) exams.
 

This is the highest number of students the Government has committed to sponsor for higher education.
The Kenya Universities and Colleges Placement Service (KUCCPS) reports indicated that 88,626 candidates who scored C+ and above had all been allocated courses of their choice.

Of these, KUCCPS said public universities had been allocated 71,089 students while private institutions will absorb a record 17,368. The placement was conducted based on choices they made, merit and Affirmative Action.
 

Last year, President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered this changed and the placement of at least 10,000 Government-sponsored students to the 28 private universities.

This is the first time students are being admitted to both public and private universities at the same time through KUCCPS. It is also the first time all students who qualified are being admitted to universities, and the first time universities have been allocated students below their declared capacities.
 

The rapid expansion of universities had led in the past to the commercialisation of education at the expense of quality and relevance of the degrees to the needs of the workforce and country.
This too has changed.

We are proud that now CUE has taken full charge of the quality control of university education and is undertaking rigorous review of all academic programmes at the universities to make them more responsive to the realities of our economy.
 

Universities have become more innovative in their approach to imparting skills and knowledge. For instance, JKUAT is assembling computers for our primary schools laptop programme. We are emphasizing meaningful research and innovation in line with our country’s technological and economic needs as we seek to generate homegrown solutions to our challenges.

This is already reaping results for our country which is rightly earning its label as ‘Silicon Savannah’. Kenya has become the tech hub of Africa, an industry that could be worth more than one billion dollars to the country in the next few years.
 

However, beyond the money and industry this brings to the country and its coffers, is the opportunity we are providing our children, our hope and our future.
It cannot be that any child that dreams big will not be able to realise that ambition because of their status or lack of funding.

VALID DREAMS

To not be able to facilitate a child’s dreams and to impose a cycle of poverty can be heart-rending for any individual and obviously amounts to a dereliction of duty for any government. It is a herculean challenge to find a solution to this issue. In fact far more developed nations than have tried but failed to address it.

It has not been easy but it is another promise that we kept after assessing the situation and finding solutions to the pressing challenges.This is why finding a university place for all Kenyans who successfully applied is an unprecedented achievement which gives hope to all Kenyan children and their parents that if they seek a university education they can achieve it, giving them hope of a more secure financial future.

This is part of the infrastructure that we have laid for a more successful Kenya, especially one that meets Kenya’s Vision 2030 and the overral goal to make our nation an upper middle income country.
This is good for Kenya. This is vital for Kenyans.