• Providing quality post-primary education

Providing quality post-primary education

This paper is a two-part country case study on Kenya’s public and private university systems.  It analyses the challenges, issues and achievements associated with African higher education in Kenya, and seeks to promote a wider recognition of the importance of universities to African development. The paper further intends to advance the state of knowledge about higher education in Africa and support the movement for university reform on the continent.

The section on public universities focuses on reforms that are possible in the spaces between what is covered by official policy and despite government interventions. The private universities were less subject to government intrusion but nevertheless are bound by broad regulatory measures established by the Commission for Higher Education (CHE) and, while able to exercise relatively greater autonomy than their public colleagues, are not entirely immune to the surrounding official culture.

Further to this, the paper emphasises that from a policy perspective, issues of quality, relevance and employment are compounded by the confused state of legislation governing universities. This has led to different methods of accreditation and programme certification. Attempts by the Commission for Higher Education to rationalise post-secondary education – its central mandate – have been met with widespread resistance from the public universities, with the result that it tends to confine itself to the registration and certification of private ones.

According to the report policy will target six key reform areas:

• governance/management
• quality/relevance
• expansion/integration
• access/equity
• finance/financial management 
• community service and engagement with society.

In conclusion, the paper states that the proposed reforms will promote the creation of a broader, national system that will integrate the increasing number of private institutions with the more established public ones.

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