Why Kenyan varsities lag behind in global scores

The recent release of the 2020 academic ranking of world universities by Webometrics was greeted with much celebration in South African universities and resounding silence by their Kenyan counterparts.

In a dominant performance, South African universities locked in eight of the top 10 positions of best ranked universities in Africa, while Kenyan universities were distinguished by their absence from the top tier, except for the University of Nairobi which ranked tenth.

The underwhelming performance of Kenyan universities in global academic rankings has been linked to poor governance, mismanagement and chronic underfunding, among other factors.

A number of public universities have neither a university council (the highest governing body of public universities) nor substantive holders of key leadership positions, Irritated by the governance crisis in the public universities, Education Cabinet Secretary.

 George Magoha has declared he will initiate a raft of proposals for legislative and policy reforms such as amending the Universities Act 2012 to give the Cabinet Secretary the power to appoint members of university councils without the inconvenience of first advertising the vacant positions; and a free hand to pick vice-chancellors, including foreign ones, from a list of candidates recommended by a university council.

Public universities

If legislated, Prof George Magoha’s proposals would be catastrophic, further cutting back the little institutional autonomy the public universities have currently, and making them little more than institutional appendages of the Ministry of Education.

The current model of Kenyan university governance is deeply flawed and profoundly non-democratic, as all the members of the university council are appointed by the State without any participation of the recipient university.

Under an unpopular amendment to the Universities Act in 2018, all vice-chancellors and their deputies are recruited through the Public Service Commission, and appointed by the university council after consultation with the Education Cabinet Secretary.

The consultation requirement is as opaque as it is vague, and has caused much confusion as happened early this year during the appointment process of the VC of the University of Nairobi when various public agencies publicly disagreed over who had been validly appointed to the position.

Upon assuming office, many VCs of the public universities, having been appointed through an obscure process, without any involvement of the university community, and not accountable to the members of the institution, immediately begin to wield the overwhelming powers granted to them under the university statutes in an authoritarian manner.

 Little wonder that the typical public university is run like a corporate machine, with the university council behaving like a company board of directors, the vice chancellor ensconced as the CEO and students deemed customers.

It should come as no surprise therefore that the universities under-perform in global academic ranking, all the while, council membership positions are highly sought after by people with little interest in higher education.

If the government is interested in real reforms, it should borrow a leaf from the governance framework of universities with superior academic ranking. Highly ranked universities tend to have governance systems that promote internal democracy, academic freedom, fiscal stability and institutional autonomy.

Institutional autonomy is achieved when a university council vigorously shields the university from the State and political system, while simultaneously keeping the university open to the world. Such councils are best constituted through election of the majority of council members by academic staff and students, while other members can be appointed by the state or drawn externally from the industry.

University councils

Experience has shown that VCs elected by such university councils tend to be fully accountable to the university community, and are unlikely to be associated with egregious abuse of executive power, corruption and arbitrary decision making.

For instance, in South Africa, under the Higher Education Act of 1997, a proportion of membership of the university council must be elected by academic staff and students.

University workers and alumni are given greater consideration at such highly ranked institutions as the University of Oxford, where highest organ is the congregation whose membership includes all academic staff and which in turn elects members of the council.

To strengthen the governance framework of Kenyan public universities, the Ministry of Education can draw lessons from the administrative system of some of the best performing universities in Africa and globally.

Such universities place workers at the heart of key governance institutions thereby promoting internal democracy, consensus building, transparency, academic freedom and financial stability, and consequently reap the benefits of excellent administration by giving quality education.