Watoro Kamau
24 August 2008
Nairobi — The parallel degree programme is riddled with anomalies that undermine the quality of university education, a union has said.
Dr Muga K'Olale, secretary general of the University Academic Staff Union, said the rapid increase in the number of students had a negative effect on lecturers' ability to provide quality teaching and supervision.
Although universities earn millions of shillings through the programme, they have done little to develop the staff and expand facilities.
According to Dr K'Olale, there were too many students per lecturer because the Government has not hired lecturers in the last 10 years.
The Uasu boss said that even before parallel programmes were introduced, all public universities had a shortage of staff.
Poor pay
"Poor pay had forced most of our qualified lecturers to leave the country in search of greener pasture in South Africa, Botswana, USA and Australia. The introduction of parallel programmes added another workload to lecturers. The lecturers are overstretched to the point of fatigue," he said.
According to him, each lecturer should supervise two masters' degree students and one doctorate student. But at present, some lecturers are supervising 45 masters' students and five doctorate students while at the same time teaching undergraduate students.
"We want a situation where more lecturers are recruited to ensure they commit their time to research and teaching," said the Egerton University don.
The Uasu official said that although the union supported the expansion of public universities to give more Kenyans access to higher education, this should not be done at the expense quality.
Said Dr K'Olale: "The mission of a university -- which is training, research, dissemination of knowledge and national service -- should be enhanced as our public universities expand their programmes and admit more students."
According to him, most faculties in many public universities especially medicine and engineering lacked vital facilities and equipment to offer quality teaching and training services.
The Registration Board for Engineering Association of Kenya and other professional bodies including the Architectural Society of Kenya have cast doubts on the quality of training offered by some universities.
According to Dr K'Olale universities claim that they spend 35 per cent of money earned from parallel programmes to pay lecturers "but this is not true as no one has ever stated how much money is generated from the programmes."
The unionist said that Uasu had proposed that universities offer better pay to lecturers so that they teach all students without regard to whether they were in the regular or parallel programmes.
He called on the Government to support universities by providing more funds for research and training of lecturers.
Recruit staff
"The State has a duty to recruit staff in universities, equip the campuses, train staff and retain them to enhance productivity and uphold academic standards," he said and called on the Government to establish how much money had been collected from parallel programmes in each university and how it had been spent.
"Currently, we cannot talk about quality assurance when universities are ill-equipped, lecturers are overworked, libraries have no books and journals and research is not being carried out," he said.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
