Elevation of colleges to universities faulted

The government has been urged to stop elevating technical colleges to universities.

According to Higher Education, Science and Technology assistant minister Asman Kamama, politicians are interfering with the role of technical institutes in the development of the country.

“To industrialise as a nation, we need technical institutes. My message to politicians is to stop grabbing Tivet (technical, industrial, vocational and entrepreneurship training) institutions and elevating them to universities,” he said.

He added: “To achieve Vision 2030 goals, we need 30,000 engineers, 90,000 electricians and about 400,000 artisans who are going to be produced from technical institutes.”

He was addressing delegates during a meeting on polytechnics across Africa at the Sarova Whitesands Hotel in Mombasa on Tuesday.

National Council for Science and Technology secretary Abdulrazak Shaukat said the government needed to focus on building more universities and not elevating existing colleges to universities, noting that each had a special role to play towards development.

Director of Technical Institutes in Kenya Edwin Tarno appealed to delegates to engage in partnerships with the private sector, saying that they were key in addressing the challenges facing the institutes in the country.