PUBLIC UNIVERSITY FUNDING: GOVERNMENT EXPLORING AVENUES TO WAIVE PART OF PENDING BILL
The Ministry of Education is consulting with the Ministry of Finance and other stakeholders to have part of the huge pending bill facing Public Universities in Kenya which now stands at over Kshs.75 billion waived. This is according to State Department for Higher Education and Research Principal Secretary Beatrice Muganda Inyangala.
Dr Inyangala said the report on the pending bills is now with the Pending Bills Committee. “We are also looking at escalating the issue of these pending bills to the Cabinet,” she said.
The PS made the remarks in Naivasha Nakuru County on the sidelines of a meeting with the local universities’ Vice-chancellors and Deputy Vice Chancellors (Academics) of all the universities in the country to deliberate on the preparation for the implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) ahead of the entry of the first cohort under the revamped curriculum in the year 2029. The meeting was organized by the Commission for University Education (CUE).
At the same time, Dr Inyangala said the new funding model has seen the Universities receive Kshs. 38 billion more in their budget geared towards meeting the increased demands of facilitating and accommodating the growing number of students joining universities as well as crafting new programs that meet job market demands for graduates.
CUE Chief Executive Officer Professor Mike Kuria on his part said universities continue to put more emphasis on teacher education guidelines to guide and the review of existing curriculum to align them with the needs and demands of the CBC system.
About 563,000 students were enrolled in universities in Kenya during the 2022/23 academic year. Public universities rely largely on government subsidies to run their operations.
