Nairobi — Private Higher Learning Institutions have suffered a mega blow after the Ministry of Education committed to place Kenya Certificate Secondary Education (KCSE) cohorts in Public Universities only.
Appearing before the Public Investment Committee (PIC) on Governance and Education, Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu told MPs that commencing this year the placement of students will prioritize public universities.
The Placement done by Kenya University and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) has been placing students in both Public and Private Institutions.
"The commitment of government is that from this year since we have capacity in our public universities, we will place them in those learning institutions unless the parents decides to take their children to private institutions," said Machogu.
In order to deal with the cash crisis bedeviling public universities, the Education Cabinet Secretary has mentioned that the government will also cut disbursing capitation and grants to private institutions following the changes.
"We have said that no government grant or capitation is going to private universities. We have made this very clear from this year unless a Kenyan who is able decides to take his or her child to private institutions," Machogu stated.
The Chair of the Committee asserted that they have managed to tighten loose ends to ensure that students are not placed in private learning institutions at the expense of the public universities.
"Its clear that there's no law that compel KUCCPS to place students in private universities.The available capacity in public university is 200,000 and those with C plus and above are 174,000.We have excess space even host international students," said Wamboka.
In previous revelations made before the Public Investment Committee on Education and Governance it has been unearthed that since 2016 the State Department of Higher Education and Research has disbursed Sh 12Billion to private varsities since 2016.
In the 2021/2022 private universities were allocated Sh3.3 billion, in 2020/2021 they were allocated Sh2.7 billion, in 2019/2020 they were allocated Sh1.9 billion.
In the year 2021-2022, top five private universities that received the highest number of students are Mount Kenya University (5,489), Catholic University of East Africa (2,691), KCA University (2,724), Kabarak University (2,157) and Zetech University (1,673).
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While the University Act 42 of 2012 clause 56 (1a) allows the placement of the government sponsored students to all Universities and Colleges there was no influx of government sponsored students to occasion their placement to Private learning institutions.
The introduction of government sponsored students to be placed in private owned universities started in 2015 during the retired President Uhuru Kenyatta regime.
The government made the move to address the issue of congestion in public varsities due to lack of space to accommodate students in various programs.
The concern however is that the number of government sponsored students joining private universities has been on a steady increase despite available spaces to accommodate them in public universities.
The placement board has defended its move to place students based in private universities saying the process is done based on the student's choice.
For example, in the 2021 universities placement, private universities received a total 28,063 students, higher than the 27,447 placed to the universities in the previous year.
In the same year, universities which include Taita Taveta University, which had declared 1,795 slots received only 524 students representing 29 percent, Turkana University, which had declared a total of 1,130 slots and only received 518 students ,Grate Lakes University of Kisumu, which had declared 2,550 slots but has only received 224 students representing 8 percent.
