An audit report released today by the Commission for University Education (CUE) has revealed so much rot in Kenyan public universities and called on urgent reforms to restore confidence in higher education. CUE launched the audit last month following public outcry on the quality of graduates graduating these institutions of higher learning.
The audit disclosed that in some universities, there were missing marks, delayed completion rates, and unaccountability for students. Also, the quality of school-based programmes offered by many universities was found wanting. “The programmes do not afford adequate contact time between the learners and their lecturers,” says the report, “neither do learners afford sufficient exposure to quality degree research, library time and interaction between the learners themselves.”
There is also rampant abuse of the ‘executive’ degree programmes, including using such qualifications for admission to academic programmes as well as gaining employment, as academic staff, in the universities.
The commission categorically stated in the report that some universities were offering programmes that were not approved, while some universities were not strictly adhering to the admission criteria. “Some students were securing entry to undergraduate programmes using pre-university and bridging programmes, which are not recognized in law,” says the report.
The Audit also says there’s rampant abuse of the Credit Accumulative and Transfer System (CATS). It was observed that many universities did not have anti-plagiarism policies and systems in place to assess authenticity of research papers. This results in plagiarism, commonly known as ‘copy-pasting’ among the students.
Regarding teaching staff in the universities, it was observed that a number of universities were not adhering to the ratios of full-time to part-time staff, as provided for in the Standards and Guidelines.
Speaking when he released the report today, the chairman to the commission, Prof Chacha Nyaigoti Chacha, stated that all stakeholders would be involved in clearing the mess in the universities. “The Commission will work with key stakeholders in university education to review the existing Universities Regulations and Standards & Guidelines, within the next six months, in order to align them with the amended Act,” said Prof Chacha.
Each university is required to submit its corrective actions to the Commission within 30 days. Also, during the 2017 graduation cycle, all universities will be expected to ensure that all students receive transcripts and results prior to graduating. To this end, each university is required to establish and implement an effective electronic student and data management system within the next six months. “Universities that fail to comply with this requirement will be severely sanctioned, including possibly losing of their university status,” said Prof Chacha.
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The Commission for University Education has, not surprisingly, been got with its pants down one more time. CUE is the body tasked with continuous audit of universities and yet it is telling stories of things that went wrong as long ago as 5 years ago? What incompetence! The CUE Chair and Secretary have been waxing poetic about ‘standards and guidelines’ yet some of the guidelines they talk about are non-existent. For example where are the guidelines on class size? I tried googling CUE documents and searching for ‘size’ and got about 26 hits all talking about the physical size of the class and absolutely nothing about size as in the allowed number of students in a specific course that can be taught in one room. The CUE organization is like a headless chicken. For God’s sake it cannot expect imaginary standards to be met! Is the CUE policy think tank made of building foremen and architectural draftsmen?