Engineering students fight order to lock them out of graduation

Thirty-four engineering students have gone to court seeking to have their university compelled to ensure that they are in the list of those set to graduate.

The Technical University of Kenya students who have been asked to postpone their graduation because they did not study a single new unit for their course, have sued the institution’s vice-chancellor, its council, the director of the school for mechanical and process engineering department and the academic registrar.

Through lawyer Ham Lagat, they are challenging a decision taken by the institution’s senate on December 5 which dictated that they would graduate on April 2017 instead of December 20.

“They have waited for a whole year to graduate without being informed that there was a unit they did not do and some were employed on condition that they avail their Degree Certificates upon graduation this year,” Mr Lagat said.

In the case documents, he said the 34 should not be victimised for the alleged failures of the University and that in any event there are those who have graduated before them in 2014 and 2015 without taking the alleged course.

The students argued that they have successfully completed all the requisite units for their course, met all academic and financial obligations as required by the Universities Act as well as even completed their four months attachment.

They alleged that they received information on November 7 from the acting chairman of the mechanical engineering department that their class was not going to graduate this year as they failed to offer a unit called ‘Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing’ in their third year of study.

They alleged that the said information was informally communicated to them one year after having completed their studies in the institution and just one month to the scheduled graduation.

They also alleged that the unit was merely introduced recently yet the institution is not apologetic for the mistake on its part.

In an attempt to solve the stalemate with the administration, the students who joined the institution in September 2013 for their four year course, held a class meeting on November 8 with the department’s chairman and director.

They claimed that the director had agreed with them that there was indeed a failure on the part of the department hence promised to discuss the issue with the Academic Registrar and the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Research.

They also claimed that they had been promised that a solution would have been reached by November 11, however, to date they have not received any communication from the university.

They further claimed that they have not been issued with their provisional results for the fourth year examination which was done in April and August last year.

They therefore want an order issued compelling the VC and the Senate to include their names in the list being compiled for the oncoming graduation.