Kenya's most popular degrees named

Computer science, education and commerce are the most popular courses taught in public universities, according to the Joint Admissions Board (JAB).

Astronomy and astrophysics, coastal and marine management, soil and land use management are some of the least popular courses. Others are control and instrumentation, textile and apparel design and seed science.

Kenyatta University leads in the number of courses it teaches, capping at 70, followed by Moi (67) and Nairobi (49).

Jab’s 2009/2010 analysis of undergraduate degree programmes shows that art-based courses absorb the highest number of students nationally.

This is despite the government’s new policy to slash funding to the subjects considered to contribute little to the economy.

Nairobi this year has the highest intake of students enrolled for the arts-based courses followed by Kenyatta, Moi and Egerton.

Courses as dentistry and medicine are still the preserve of Nairobi, with the highest number of graduates yearly (300) and Moi (50).

“Offering such courses is very expensive and this number may remain at that for a very long time,” said Nairobi’s vice-chancellor George Magoha.

Prof Magoha said the students only paid Sh150,000 per year, for dentistry classes, but the actual cost was up to Sh1 million. This explains why the government directed that university education be funded on the basis of cost of mounting the courses.

Currently, all courses are funded on equal basis at the rate of Sh19 per day for the government sponsored students in all the universities.

The institutions receive Sh5 billion per year to supplement their incomes from student’s tuition fees.

"Courses will be funded differently depending on how they contribute to creating the human resource required for economic growth,” Higher Education minister William Ruto said after a meeting with vice-chancellors of the seven public universities on Monday.