Win for Egerton university engineering students over registration

Engineering graduates from Egerton University have finally won a long-running battle over the approval of their certificates.

The 55 were caught up in a battle between the Commission of University Education and the Engineering Board of Kenya (EBK) on who should accredit engineering courses.

The graduates will now return to class free of charge after High Court judge Lawrence Mugambi found that they were victims of university blunders and the CUE's failure to involve EBK while it was accrediting the university.

He said CUE had lied to Egerton that it could offer engineering courses without involving EBK.

"It was also misconceived for the second respondent to hold and mislead the first respondent to believe that it could exclusively accredit the engineering courses offered by the first respondent without the involvement of the third respondent," he said.

The judge observed that EBK had identified the gaps in Egerton's course and had informed it to offer remedial classes to the affected students for them to get registration.

He gave the university three months to honour its promise to foot the cost of the classes.

Justice Mugambi said although CUE has the overall responsibility to set university education standards, it cannot ignore EBK.

"The universities retain the academic freedom of developing academic programmes through their respective senates as provided in their respective university charters working closely with the Commission for University Education but unlike before, deference must now be accorded to the 3rd respondent whose concurrence must be obtained on accreditation of engineering courses owing to the specific legal mandate granted by the Engineers Act," he said.

The students also faulted Parliament for failure to consult stakeholders before approving the law that established the board.