The President called for more engagement with students to improve the new funding model, adding that it is tied to Kenya’s financial capabilities.
President William Ruto on Sunday, August 25 gave reasons why the Kenya Kwanza administration moved to overhaul the country’s university funding model by introducing a new one, though this has drawn widespread criticism from Kenyans.
Speaking during a town hall meeting held at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) set up to mainly address this matter, Ruto lamented that the old funding was almost putting Kenya’s education at a point of no return because of the imbalanced distribution of funds.
“The old model was almost destroying our education because, first, it assumed that all the courses were the same.
A collage of public universities in Kenya. /VIRAL TEA KE
“It also assumed that the government had the money to pay 80 per cent for everybody when it did not. (This was referred to as block funding). And the results were disastrous,” Ruto came to the defence of the new funding model.
He argued that the disparage in funding had even resulted in some institutions shutting down due to bankruptcy. “Scot Theological College closed down because of the old model,” he revealed.
Ruto went on to paint a gruesome picture of the current state of many public universities in the country, revealing that they are in a state of bankruptcy because of the old funding model.
23 out of 40 public universities were bankrupt causing low-quality education, when President Ruto was assuming office on September 13, 2022.
One lecturer from Embu University expressed, in support of the new funding model, that it was indeed availing more financial resources to help run the institutions.
However, Ruto stressed the reality that not all courses cost the same, noting that the new model recognizes that a course in medicine costs Ksh600,000 while education costs Ksh180,000.
“The government gives the medicine student more resources to train than the other student,” Ruto argued.
One lecturer from Alupe University also testified that more finances are spent to avail resources to train medicine students than on other courses.
Ruto based his defence on his finding that the lecturers who agreed with the new funding model saw how the old one failed compared to the current functionalities of the new one.
“The old model is compromising on the quality of our education, because, if lecturers are not paid, if material is not available to train our doctors and engineers, we will end up with half-baked professionals. Which will be destruction to our country,” he said.
The President called for more engagement with students to improve the new funding model, adding that it is tied to Kenya’s financial capabilities.
“We based the old model on assumptions, which were wrong and almost collapsed our education system.
“This time round we are using empirical figures that is why were are feeding them into our budget so that we give universities the money that is enough to teach students for courses they have been admitted to,” he said.
