KENYA: Private university growth a mixed blessing

Private universities are not a new phenomenon in Kenya, but their rapid growth over the last five years is raising questions about standards in higher education. Kenya today has eight public and 17 private universities (with either full or interim charter), and 20% of a total of 150,000 students attend private institutions. Now public universities have joined the fray by opening new colleges in different parts of the country and introducing ‘parallel’ degree programmes in response to spiraling demand for higher education.

The growth of the private university sector in Kenya has been fuelled by several factors including limited opportunities available in public universities, regular closures of state-funded universities, and the desire to complement government-managed higher institutions of learning. Also, interestingly, two-thirds of the new universities are run by religious organisations, mainly Protestant churches, that try to attract their followers in an effort to ensure that as young minds mature academically they stay within the faith.

A decade ago private universities were perceived to be academically inferior to public universities. Today, they are seen as mainstream institutions offering instruction of comparable – or even higher – quality than public universities. Whether or not this is the case has not been established. What is know is that growing numbers of school-leavers will go to great lengths to obtain much-coveted public or private university degrees.

Dr Freida Brown, vice-chancellor of the United States International University (USIU-Africa) in Nairobi, says that when USIU was created, private universities were seen purely as commercial enterprises that ‘sold’ degrees. “Controversy revolved around why there should be a private university that students would pay while public universities were free of charge”. But the 1990s witnessed a paradigm shift. On coming to Kenya in 1994, USIU-A was given a charter, which helped gradually to change the negative perceptions of private universities as inferior to public universities.

She says that at the time of inception, USIU-A followed the same curriculum as that of its ‘mother’ university in California, US. It offered business courses including an MBA as well as bachelor degrees in arts and psychology. This curriculum expanded over the years as USIU-A sought autonomy and became accredited by both the Kenyan Commission for Higher Education (CHE) and the American Western Association of School and Colleges. USIU-A added more courses to cater for the demands of the market.

“In the many applications we receive for admission we get students with grades As and Bs who could have qualified to go to public campuses but choose to study at USIU-A. This shows the increasing confidence in what private universities are offering”, Brown notes. Also, she adds, some students who are admitted at public universities resent the inordinately long time it takes to be enrolled in these institutions and decide to start their studies much earlier at USIU-A.

These sentiments are echoed by Irene Wahiga, a final year bachelor of journalism student at USIU-A, who says she chose to go to a private university because she could begin the programme of her choice much faster than in public universities. “I did not have to wait for a whole year to be enrolled in a public university. I also have the best chance of completing my degree in three-and-a-half years while at the same time getting quality education.”

Just like graduates from public universities, Brown says USIU-A graduates are doing well in the job market – 60% of 2007 graduates are either in formal employment or are self-employed. However, she says the university goes beyond preparing students for employment. “As an institution we have to balance between market needs and problem solving (through case studies) since market demands keep changing,” she says.

In fact, Brown believes most private universities have better facilities than public universities – but they share the same challenges, such as declining faculty members and inadequate library resources. She also worries that a recent recommendation by the CHE that university lecturers be holders of a PhD will exacerbate the lecturer shortage.

This is also bound to be aggravated as Kenya’s government plans to push enrolment in all universities up from the current 150,000 to 180,000 and then to about 400,000. This will involve lowering entry requirements for public universities to levels comparable with private universities. Brown argues that private universities cannot be pressured into taking more students than they can handle because they do not rely on the government for funding.

Despite the advances they have made, some educational analysts still see the new private universities as lacking in substance. One accusation leveled against private institutions is that many of their programmes are “vague” and “shallow” in content. Another is that the in their efforts to attract students, private universities relax entry requirements and accept students who are not really fit for academia.

Ultimately, though, private universities are here to stay. With a growing population and rising demand for education at all levels, they are set to increase student numbers in the coming years. But at some point questions will be asked about the quality of graduates – and Kenya needs to avoid the dilemma of Nigeria, where legend has it that even PhD graduates end up as cobblers for lack of job opportunities.

* Stephen Ndegwa is Executive Director of MediaSpeak Africa, a Nairobi-based civil society organisation.