Loans Phase: 1995 – To date

The new loans scheme came with changes on how students access and repay loans.

Notwithstanding, HELB is the only institution in-charge of disbursing loans and collecting debts. Students are required to apply for loans from HELB. This change came with negative impact to private university students, particularly, as they were no longer qualified for government loans. Students attending private universities were considered to have the ability to pay for their education because they come from well-off families. In other words, Verghese (2005) says private university students represent the elite. Students from public universities would access loans after means testing²¹⁷. It therefore means loans are no longer accessible to every student, as previous, but reserved for the needy Kenyans only. The government assumes a lesser responsibility of assisting needy Kenyans to access university education while taking the responsibility of public universities’ capital and recurrent expenditures. In the words of reducing public spending in higher education, public universities were encouraged to engage into for-profit projects and offer parallel programmes. For-profit projects include: petty trade on campus, commercial farming, and setting up of major proprietary establishments²¹⁸ (Wangenge-Ouma, 2008: 181). In 1998 the University of Nairobi was the first to introduce parallel programmes.

Parallel programmes refer to programmes offered to private students/self sponsored students in public universities. These students have full time employment somewhere and study in the

217 Means testing is a mechanism designed to identify needy students.

218 For example, Moi University Holdings Ltd (MUH); University of Nairobi Enterprises and Services Ltd (UNES); Maseno University’s Kisumu Hotel; and activities like welding & fabrication works, furniture production; and service units such as library, bookshop, catering, garage, health department; short courses;

consultancy; research & development – commercialization of research findings and inventions. In addition, UNES activities include: financial management of full fee-paying programme, a funeral parlor and diary farm, running of short courses, restaurants and conferences (Sifuna, 2010: 182).

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evening after work or on weekends. Before this time, public universities had a few number²¹⁹ of students who pay very low tuition fee compared to private universities. Thus, with parallel programmes, public universities have two categories of students. Yakaboski and Nolan (2011:7) name them as government sponsored and self-sponsored/full paying students. The government-sponsored students are those students in regular programme²²⁰ who scored the highest grades obtained from their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE) results and selected by a Joint Admissions Board (JAB) through a joint application program while the self-sponsored/full paying students are a result of cost sharing where parents and/or students pay for the education costs²²¹.

However, self-sponsored students are admitted with lower grades obtained from their KCSE results. Arguably, they are students of poor quality. For example, Odhiambo (2011: 306) demonstrates that students with grades as low as ‘C’ plus are now gaining admission to competitive professional courses such as medicine and law on parallel programme;

previously, these demanding subjects were reserved for students with ‘A’ minus or above grades. Consequently, the government will have more graduates who cannot deliver. In support of this view, the government report, Koech Report (1999) admits to a lack of quality control and quality assurance and equity in the parallel programmes. In terms of enrolments, there is a very noticeable rise, in most cases parallel programme students outnumbers regular programme students. For instance, by 2008 UoN had 71% private sponsored students; KU had 57%; MU had 50%; JKUAT had 58%; Egerton had 33%; and Maseno had 60% self-sponsored students (Ngare and Muindi, 2008). Generally, public universities’ enrolments have skyrocketed from over 40,000 in 1996 (Odhiambo, 2011:304) to 97,103 students in 2007/2008 (Sifuna, 2010: 418). It is imperative to acknowledge the positive contribution of parallel programmes. Fees from self-sponsored students generate substantial revenue each year. For example, Otieno in Odhiambo (2011: 306) demonstrates that public universities

219 Normally, the number of students to be admitted in public universities is set by JAB in each year depending on the availability of finances from the government budget. Ngolovoi (2008: 142) states that the capacity of public universities is limited to only enroll 10,000 students in regular programme.

220 Regular programme refers to a programme where classes start from morning until evening.

221 These include: tuition fees, university maintenance fees, books and stationeries, accommodation, meals, transport to and from university, and other personal expenses.

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collect more than Ksh. 12 billion (equivalent to USD 137million)²²² from self-sponsored students.

In 1999 the government reviewed the earlier decision that prevented private students to access government loans. From this time every needy student can access means-tested loans to study either in public (regular and parallel programmes) or private universities. However, the loan is insufficient to meet education costs in private universities. Normally, private universities charge high tuition fees²²³ and accommodation and meals are not subsidized. It is argued that students who access private universities must have other sources of income. While students studying at public universities can access grants/bursaries and/or partial scholarships, private university students have a narrow access to this opportunity. In the favour of this argument, Ngolovoi (2007) clarifies the way bursaries may be accessed. She says bursaries can be obtained from two major sources. The first source is the Ministry of Education where about Ksh. 82 million (USD 933,941)²²⁴ are disbursed in each financial year. HELB has to identify the needy students eligible for bursaries in each year. However, students in private universities do not receive bursaries from HELB and instead apply to the Ministry of Education for funds. Without prejudice, private students have limited access to assistance from government because of the preconceived idea that these students have the ability to finance their education in the first place before enrolling themselves into private universities.

The second source is the community where community members contribute for development purposes, education is one.

In addition, the government through parliament allocates development funds to every constituency each year. It is known as Constituency Development Fund (CDF)²²⁵. According to Ngolovoi (2007) students in both private and public universities can also apply for grants or bursaries from CDF. Nonetheless, there are no data on how many university students have

222 Whereas USD 1 = Ksh. 87.80 as at 29 Jan. 2013, accessed from http://themoneyconverter.com/USD/KES.aspx

223 This is because private institutions in Kenya depend for their revenue on tuition fees they generate from students. Such heavy dependence on tuition coupled with lack of alternative income sources have made these institutions expensive and thus unaffordable for most Kenyans, in effect limiting their services to the children of high socio-economic status (Nyaigotti-Chacha, 2004).

224 Whereas USD 1 = Ksh. 87.80 as at 29 Jan. 2013, accessed from http://themoneyconverter.com/USD/KES.aspx

225 CDF is allocated by Parliament to implementation of various developmental projects in a constituency such as water, health, infrastructure, education, etc. Arguably, due to its multiplicity of discharging duties, it is hard for a university student to access such a fund. It is as good as absent.

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already accessed fund from CDF. At a glance, one would say Kenya has diversified financial mechanisms to facilitating students’ access to higher education. The pertinent question remaining is, are these mechanisms democratized enough to facilitate poor Kenyans’ access to university under liberal policies of private financing? This study is set to find answers to the question.

The greatest challenge that Tanzania and Kenya face is to develop a screening system that identifies the truly needy applicants. This is actually facilitated by the environment where people live with no proper records of their revenues and expenditures which are fundamental in assessing one’s ability to pay for the education. Most of the assessments are done on unverified information. It therefore creates a loophole for maneuvers and thus those who are able to pay for their education are also considered as needy students. One may argue that the truly needy (poor) are denied access to university. This denial seems severe to people with disabilities and women as many are poor and unable to pay for their education. Opini (2012) conducted a research on women students with disabilities’ participation in university education to find out that most persons with disabilities have limited or no access to education because they are poor and live in rural areas (p.75). Again, the socio-cultural settings restrict women participation in higher education. It was supported by Nyaigotti-chacha (2004) that the situation in Kenya is critical where participation of women in higher education is very low because of the traditional cultural values that emphasize women roles as wife and mother.

This under representation of women is also seen in working places. Generally, access to university during public funding was equal to every individual. Democratic principles of non-discrimination were observed promptly. It is expected the same to be followed in the era of liberalization where higher education is a commodity and there is an emphasis of individual rights.