Overworked Lecturers & Rising Student Dropouts in New Funding Model: UASU Highlights Strains
On Wednesday, Onesmus Mutio, the Organising Secretary of the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU), highlighted the severe challenges universities face due to the new higher education funding model introduced last year.
Mutio pointed out that lecturers are overwhelmed and student dropouts are increasing.
The new funding model requires universities to disclose the costs of their programmes on the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) platform.
This allows students to choose between private and public universities. KUCCPS then allocates students based on the slots declared by institutions, which are subsequently approved by the Commission for University Education (CUE).
During an interview on Daybreak, Mutio described the burden placed on lecturers who have to manage large numbers of students.
He cited Kisii University, where CUE approved a capacity of 16,464 students despite having fewer than 400 lecturers.
Mutio expressed concerns about the heavy workload on lecturers and the need for the government to hire more teaching staff.
He emphasized that teaching such a large number of students requires a substantial increase in lecturer numbers and urged the government to recruit 1,000 more lecturers.
Additionally, Mutio reported that the new model has forced some students to enroll in courses they are not interested in, leading to higher dropout rates.
He warned of a looming crisis if the government does not address this issue.
Students studying subjects they are not passionate about, such as being assigned accounting instead of journalism, are more likely to drop out, impacting their performance and morale.
In this year’s selection, 18,557 students chose private universities, a significant increase from 9,622 last year.
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The universities with the highest number of students include Kenyatta University (8,820), Maseno University (7,848), Kisii University (7,772), University of Nairobi (7,731), and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (7,112).
Mutio called for urgent action to recruit more lecturers and align student placements with their interests to prevent a future crisis in higher education.
Overworked Lecturers & Rising Student Dropouts in New Funding Model: UASU Highlights Strains
