Our varsities call for a total overhaul

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i’s in-tray has been piling by the day with rot and institutional failure at the key education agencies.

One of the institutions that the CS should cast his spotlight on are our universities and particularly the Commission for Higher Education, which has failed to live up to its mandate.

Its relaxed supervision and enforcement has partly contributed to the fall in university education standards countrywide.

The issues that require to be urgently addressed in our universities include tribalism, mushrooming of campuses, overcrowded lecture halls and unrecognised degree programmes.

Lecturers have also played a role by failing to attend classes, tutorials are unheard-of, supervision of postgraduate students has been turned into a casual affair and plagiarism of research and term papers is the order of the day.

The tribal card and favouritism have contributed to the rot, making some lecturers and deans of departments untouchable despite their incompetence. Our university sector needs total overhaul, to say the least.