MPs’ queries on varsity funding crisis crucial

There is a major crisis in higher education. The funding of university students, the majority of whom are in public institutions, poses a serious challenge.

When it introduced a new funding model last year, the Kenya Kwanza government thought it had found the much-needed solution. It divided the students into various categories, such as the needy and less needy, to determine the allocation of bursaries and loans.

However, the costs of the different courses have risen, forcing some students, who had qualified for higher professional disciplines, to opt for lower and more affordable programmes. Nearly 20,000 students failed to take up their places in the public universities last year, uncertain as to whether their further funding could be guaranteed.

It is, therefore, encouraging that Members of Parliament have now taken the bull by the horns and want to find out what could be wrong with the new university funding model. They have thus posed some critical questions.

In a statement read in Parliament, the lawmakers want to know just how effective the new funding system is. They have also sought an analysis of the beneficiaries since its inception, and a report confirming how equitable the sharing of the funds has been.

From the Ministry of Education, they expect a breakdown of the challenges and efforts by the government to explain to the students and parents how this new system works. The National Assembly Committee on Education has summoned the Higher Education Principal Secretary and the University Fund (UF) to provide the answers.

Under the new system, the UF awards the government scholarships while the loans are disbursed by the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb). The old Helb loans were uniform for all in a course.

That there is, indeed, a serious crisis is not in doubt. It is this confusion that must have forced the government to cancel a university fee review for the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) cohort to join the universities in September.

The funding of the students should streamlined to boost education as the country needs this high-level manpower in the various sectors for national development.