Moi University woes reflect years of State neglect of higher education

Public universities have been in the news of late over financial difficulties. One of them is Moi University.

From an insider-outsider perspective, the university’s problems are a product of years of State neglect of public institutions of higher education.

I was lucky to be among the few students who joined Moi University in the late 1980s. It was a place to behold. From the physical infrastructure to the instructional resources, the institution was well.

Then came the Bretton Woods institutions’ structural adjustment programmes in the early 1990s with their cost-sharing policy in both the education and health sectors in developing countries. This was a condition for aid and other financial services from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Public services began to experience a nose-dive in funding.

Congestion, dilapidated infrastructure, a demotivated workforce and dwindling financial support from the exchequer became common features in the institutions.

The government was forced to open up doors to tertiary education. Unfortunately, due to lack of transparency and accountability in public governance, funding for both the education and health sectors became the gravy train for blue-eyed boys and girls of the regime.

Upon taking power in 2002, the new regime under President Mwai Kibaki sought to implement its campaign promises. Ahead of the pack was the Free Primary Education policy. Little thought had been put into consideration on how execute it.

The high demand for university education, buoyed by the enabling financial conditions in the country, gave fillip to the privately sponsored students' programmes. This became a major source of finance to public universities, and things looked good.

However, university honchos did not plan well on how to utilise and invest the funds. Corruption and mismanagement, among other challenges, characterised the management of resources in the universities. It was against this backdrop that funding to the public universities experienced a drastic fall. Talk of getting funds from research consultancy and other income generating sources was popularised. Unfortunately, the Kenyan situation was not conducive for this.

Things changed abruptly after the Jubilee Alliance took power in 2013. First  was further reduction in the capitation funds in public universities, which went down from 80 to 52 per cent. A new monster of delayed delivery of the funds followed.

Second was addressing examination malpractices in primary and secondary schools' summative evaluations. This intervention, radically reduced the number of entrants to university thus sounding the death-knell to the privately sponsored students’ programme.

One university after the other began to experience difficulties in payment of salaries, suppliers and remittance of statutory deductions from the salaries of employees. Unfortunately, the government still saw it wise to reduce the capitation funds to public universities, which now stands at a mere 42 per cent.

It is in this context that the troubles of Moi University should be examined. This explains why, even with the changes in the management of the institution, there is nothing to smile about. The current management is made up of able individuals who can easily remove the institution from the doldrums, but this is not possible due to the half-baked measures from the government.

The two deputy vice chancellors are people with the institution's memory. They know what can be done to solve the institutions’ woes but in the absence of serious support from the government, nothing much can come out of their efforts.

Public universities require a Marshall Plan. This should begin with the government providing 100 per cent funding to public universities. Unfortunately, the government seems to have decided to continue with the State neglect of these institutions.

If things continue this way, we'll soon be writing obituaries of our public universities. The half-baked measures being taken cannot not bail out these institutions. The government should begin by addressing Moi University woes and  then do the same for the rest.