The emergence of private university education in Kenya: trends, prospects, and challenges

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Abstract

The first step towards the introduction and development of university education in Kenya was a private initiative. Although the initiative was rejected, it led to the establishment of the Royal Technical College in Nairobi. The Royal College, Nairobi was elevated to university status under a special arrangement with the University of London in 1961 and changed its name to the University College of Nairobi. In 1970, the University College of Nairobi attained full university status, becoming the first institution of its kind in the country. Over the past three decades, public universities have grown to six, accomplished their initial mission of developing human capital, and supplying manpower to the civil service. They have also helped foster an intellectual community in the country. But public universities have also faced new challenges such as enrollments beyond their capacity to plan and finance; fiscal challenges beyond their control; and a decline in quality beyond their anticipation. To help solve some of these problems, the Kenya government has encouraged and facilitated the establishment and growth of private universities and colleges. This article provides an overview of Kenya’s private higher education over the past two decades. It discusses the forces behind its expansion and questions its ability to design and offer quality education. It concludes that the government should provide some assistance to the private universities and colleges but restrict their establishment and growth to those that can provide new programs in areas of critical need such as technology, economics and sciences.

Introduction

The establishment of private universities and colleges in Kenya began in 1969 with the founding of the United States International University (USIU). However, private higher education initiative had a much longer history. In 1947, the Asian community petitioned the colonial authorities to charter a college as a memorial to Gandhi offering training in commerce and technical subjects. Although the initiative was rejected by the colonial authorities, it led to the founding of the Royal Technical College in Nairobi in 1952 which eventually became the University of Nairobi in 1970 after several institutional iterations (Eisemon, 1992: p. 7). Nevertheless, it was not until the 1980s that many of the private colleges and universities were established by Christian religious groups.

The 1980s also marked the beginning of the unprecedented expansion in Kenya’s public university education. In spite of their establishment in the 1980s, the growth of private universities in Kenya is a phenomenon of the 1990s. It is this growth that has brought private universities and colleges to the forefront of the country’s higher education. This article provides an overview of Kenya’s private higher education over the past two decades. The focus is on the forces behind its slow beginning followed by a decade of rapid expansion and the implications for public policy. It discusses the ability of the private universities to design and offer quality education at a time when state universities are reported by the dominant print and electronic media to be declining in quality.

The development of private higher education in Kenya is intractably linked to that of the public universities. First, the founding of the University of Nairobi has a history of private initiative, and second, the 1980s marked the unprecedented growth of public universities and the establishment of private colleges and universities. Therefore, it is appropriate that this article begins with a discussion on the growth of public university education.

The development of university education in Kenya is a product of both history and politics (Abagi, 1996: p. 2). As new education and training needs have emerged since independence, the tendency has been to create new institutions by presidential pronouncements. Thus, the creation of additional state universities after the University of Nairobi was associated with former President Moi’s desire for national pride and domestic politics than with planned need for these institutions (Abagi, 1996).

At independence in 1963, following a 1961 Act of the East African Commission, the Royal Technical College was upgraded to the University College of Nairobi. In 1970, the University of Nairobi was established by an Act of Parliament. Kenyatta College, then a diploma-awarding college of education, became a constituent college of the University of Nairobi under the name, Kenyatta University College (Abagi, 1996: p. 2). Kenya proceeded cautiously in expanding higher education in the 1970s (Eisemon, 1992: p. 7). The focus during this period was on a gradual increment in the number of programs that were on offer at the University of Nairobi and the development of postgraduate programs to facilitate the Africanisation of the faculty (Eisemon, 1992: p. 7).

The 1980s marked the beginning of unprecedented growth of public universities in Kenya. This was the period during which Kenya’s second president, Daniel Arap Moi began to consolidate his power after taking over leadership following the death of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta and a subsequent election in 1979 which confirmed Moi’s presidency. Although Abagi (1996: p. 2) cites Moi’s desire for national pride and domestic politics as having influenced the expansion of state universities, it had also become clear to Moi’s government that even with the expansion of the University of Nairobi, the demand for university education would remain largely unmet. In 1981, a Presidential Working Party recommended the setting up of the second state university. In response to its recommendations, Moi University was established in 1984, with the academic mission of producing graduates specialized in technological and environmental fields (Abagi, 1996: p. 2). The establishment of Moi University broke from the tradition in Africa in which universities were an elevation of an existing institution such as a teachers college or a technical institute. Instead its establishment involved the clearing a forest and erecting new buildings where none had existed before. In many ways, it was a university in the middle of nowhere.

As Abagi (1996: p. 2) notes, the subsequent years saw the establishment of an additional three universities based partly on the social demand but more so on the political expediency of the Moi government. Kenyatta University which had been a teachers training constituent college of the University of Nairobi since 1978 was promoted to a fully-fledged university in 1985, with additional programs in liberal arts, science, commerce and environmental sciences. Egerton University, an agricultural diploma college was elevated to university status in 1987, with expanded programs in addition to its specialization in agriculture and environmental sciences. Jomo Kenyatta College of Agriculture and Technology, previously a constituent college of Kenyatta University, was elevated to full university status in 1993. Maseno University, previously a teachers’ training college converted to a constituent college of Moi University in 1990, was elevated to a full university status in 2001.

The rapid expansion of Kenya’s public university system is presented in Table 1. The official enrollment at the state universities increased from 571 students in 1963/64 academic year to an all time high of 42,360 in 1995/96. State universities witnessed the largest increment in enrollments in 1987/88 when student population went up by over 100% for undergraduate enrollment as a result of a presidential declaration for double intake1. The year 1990/91 also registered a sharp increase in undergraduate enrollment to 36,691 from the previous year of 24,164 when the first group of the 8–4–4 education system joined the university with the last group of the former advanced level system2.

The universities continued with their growth in student population in the subsequent years until 1996/97 academic year when it declined to 37,212. By 2000/01 academic year, the student population at the state universities had dropped from an all time high of 42,360 in 1995/96 to 34,955. But this figure does not include the students who have been enrolled in the public universities under the parallel degree programs which were initiated in 1997/98 as a means of financial diversification3. The benefits and problems associated with parallel programs have received much attention (see e.g. Amutabi, 2002, Amutabi and Oketch, 2003, Oketch, 2000, Oketch, 2003).

Official documents on education (GoK, 1988; 1989; 1995; 2000) concede that the national budget on education is over-stretched. Table 2 presents the government’s overall recurrent and development expenditures on education between 1992/93 and 1999/00. In current prices, it shows that government expenditure has increased over time. However, in real terms the government expenditure on education has declined over the 8 years under review. There was a small budget increase in 1997/98 and 1998/99. The decline in real expenditure on education has really been directed at university education. Following their rapid expansion, the government budget to university education has been over-stretched and full subsidy or automatic loans to university students can no longer be sustained. For example, the recurrent expenditure in the year 1999/00 for higher education was 11.4%. This was after higher education expenditure had declined drastically by 87.0% from Ksh. 867.2 million in 1998/99 to Ksh. 112 million in 1999/00 financial year (GoK, 2000: p. 35). In spite of the rapid expansion, student enrollments still lag behind other developed and Asian countries. The issue in higher education in Kenya as noted elsewhere by Rodrigues and Wandiga (1997: p. 60) is not therefore the student enrollment but its cost.

The reason for the drastic reduction in the expenditure on higher education was as a result of suspension of construction of residential and non-residential buildings at the universities (GoK, 2000). The resultant impact was over-congestion at the public universities, dilapidated buildings due to reduced workforce for maintenance, introduction of cost-sharing tuition, and the suspension of the student pocket money that was popularly known among them as ‘boom4.’ Also suspended were the reasonably high quality meals at the university catering services and the introduction of user-pays for both meals and residential-halls.

While the austerity measures while were a direct consequence of unplanned expansion of university education by the Moi government, were also tailored along the recommendations of the World Bank and IMF that advocated cost-sharing in higher education as one of the conditions for loan reimbursement under the unpopular Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). The resultant impact was the loss of the glory that was once associated with state universities, marking for the first time a growing interest in the private higher education institutions in the country, which in spite of having had a history of existence since 1969 were kept at the periphery by the perception of their ‘poor quality’ and because of subsidies and automatic loans to students in the state universities. As conditions have deteriorated at the state universities, private universities and colleges have increasingly gained prominence. But the growth in private universities are neither a direct outcome of the conditions at the state universities, nor are they an alternative to state university education. Other factors discussed in this article have contributed to the increased demand and growth in private colleges and universities in the country.

Today Kenya has 15 private colleges and universities registered by the Kenya Commission for Higher Education (Aduda, 2002) and six state universities with numerous constituent campuses. Although the growth of the state universities was unprecedented before the 1980s, the proliferation of private universities in Kenya within the past decade has been tremendous. The comparative growth between public universities and private colleges and universities is presented in Fig. 1. Between 1970 and 1980, Kenya had only one public university, the University of Nairobi and one officially recognized private university, The United States International University. USIU in Nairobi was founded in 1969 when it was granted a Presidential Charter by Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, making it the first and only secular university in East Africa (USIU, 2002). Rapid growth in both private and public universities occurred in the 1980/90 period. The 1990/2002 saw the fastest growth in the number of private institutions.

Out of the 15 registered private universities and colleges in the country, five are fully chartered and offer their own degrees, seven have registration certificates and three operate under a Letter of Interim Authority (Aduda, 2001). The chartered institutions are the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton; Catholic University of Eastern Africa; Daystar University; Scott Theological College; and United States International University (USIU).

Those that are registered by the Commission for Higher Education but awaiting a charter are East African School of Theology; Kenya Highlands Bible College; Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology; Pan African Christian College; and St. Paul’s United Theological College. These institutions offer degrees of their affiliate universities abroad. In a third category are institutions that have been given a letter of authority to run degree programs as they await registration and a charter. They are African Nazarene University; Kenya Methodist University; Agakhan University; and Kabarak University (CHE, 2002). Kabarak University is worth additional mention because of its association with former president Moi. It was established under the African Inland Church but with a generous sponsorship and land donation from Moi who also serves as its chairman of the board of trustees. It is located a few kilometres from Moi’s home in Kabarak.

As Eisemon, 1992: p. 7) notes, “Despite significant lapses in planning for this expansion, the government recognized in the mid 1980s that a mechanism would be needed to guide development of the university system and the public sector could not cope with all of the social demand for higher education. It enacted legislation in 1985 creating a Commission for Higher Education to supervise the development of state and private higher education.”

Section snippets

Accreditation in the diversified university system

The Commission for Higher Education is responsible for the coordination of the development of the state universities and the accreditation of the private ones. The state universities are established by an Act of Parliament and quality is ensured by the various university senates and other established mechanisms that guarantee that the degree programs are of domestic relevance and international recognition. The relationship between the Commission and the state universities has been contentious,

Overseas affiliation

The five chartered universities all began as affiliate colleges. This is because before the establishment of the Commission for Higher Education in 1985, there were no authorized agencies to perform this function. Moreover the government’s Ministry of Education was dominated by persons linked to the state universities, who usually paid little attention to the plight of what they regarded as lesser institutions, which were largely expected to take care of themselves. In addition, the state

Fees

The fees charged at the major private universities in 2001/02 ranged from about Ksh. 568,782 ($8000) to Ksh. 140,000 ($2000) per year, with many institutions requiring about Ksh. 120,000 ($1700). The most expensive institution to attend is the United States International University, yet it mainly employees adjunct faculty and offers instruction in low cost courses of study such as commerce and business. Its tuition alone of Ksh. 58,764 per quarter exceeds the total student fees in some of the

Why have private colleges and universities proliferated?

Although the state universities provided the mainstream starting point for Kenya’s higher education and continue to be numerically dominant, the significant fact is that the private sector has expanded over the last decade. Today, the market for higher education has become a very dynamic one, with almost one in every six college and university students attending a private college or university. Although state universities still dominate the higher education system in enrollment, the private

Challenges

In the 1980s, but particularly throughout the last decade, private institutions have proliferated in Kenya (Eisemon, 1992). However, while these institutions are not the same, yet there is also no official classification such as the Carnegie Classification in the United States for them. Numerous private institutions in the country all want to be called a university, yet in actual sense they are small teaching institutions which have traditionally specialized in such programs as accounts and

Conclusion

Private universities and colleges are expanding rapidly in Kenya. It is without doubt that they have become central to meeting some of the social demand for higher education in the country. They have also created some competition in Kenya’s higher education sub-sector. Competition is healthy because it can lead to higher standards and to significant benefits for individual students. However, as they continue to grow and emerge, only a few of these private universities might survive in the

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Stephene P. Heyneman of Vanderbilt University and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. However, the author is solely responsible for the views and any omissions in this article.

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