Protests turn into cheers for students

Engineering students at Masinde Muliro University marked last year’s Mashujaa Day with street protests.

The industry regulator had refused to register graduates from the institution, severely limiting their job prospects.

Saturday, they mark Mashujaa Day with jubilation and with the prospect of pocketing Sh200,000 each after a High Court judge this week ordered the Engineering Registration Board to recognise graduates from Masinde Muliro and Egerton universities and compensate them. (READ: Engineering students win court battle)

The year-long battle between the board and students has highlighted the problems encountered in the accreditation of professional courses at higher education institutions.

In declining to register the graduates, the board said the universities were not accredited to offer engineering courses.

But Justice David Majanja ruled that the board did not have the power to dictate courses taught by public universities, which are independent statutory bodies.

The engineering board, however, is not taking this lying down and has vowed to appeal the court decision, saying it has the power to approve courses offered by all engineering training institutions.

“We have already submitted our application. Our case has the backing of the law,” Mr Dionysius Wanjau, who sits on the board, told Saturday Nation.

At the centre of the controversy are two issues — the independence of public universities in designing syllabi and the role of professional bodies in training.

Already, there are fears that the ruling could set a precedent and rock the boat for other professional bodies that work closely with universities to develop courses.

Legally mandated

“Whether the board registers graduates is purely at its discretion. The situation between the engineering students and the board is worrying for other sectors in the country,” said Mr Steven Oundo, who sits on the Board of Registration of Architects and Quantity Surveyors.

The Commission of Higher Education is the body that is legally mandated to accredit courses offered by institutions of higher learning.

“The commission has been accrediting all degree programmes, professional or otherwise, to ensure quality. No one else can do this,” said the secretary, Professor David Some.

However, although the commission has power over private universities, it cannot question programmes offered by public universities which have senates that approve the courses.

Thus, public universities are left to their own devices when it comes to development of curricula.

However, in some professions, industry registration boards have acquired the teeth to regulate programmes.

In the medical profession, it is impossible to practice without the approval of the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board. Law graduates cannot practice without getting the nod from the Kenya School of Law.

“We amended the law to allow us to approve the curricula to be used in medical and dental schools. There is no school in Kenya that can offer training in medicine without the approval of this board,” said medical board chief executive Daniel Yumbya.

It is such powers that the engineering board is trying to acquire and Mr Wanjau justifies a legal provision that requires “a sufficient guarantee of academic knowledge and practical experience of engineering” before registration.

“There is a gap in standardising and ensuring the quality of engineering degrees. We have been filling this gap but we cannot do it if we do not have a say over the training of engineers,” he said.

This quality assurance gap, which also affects courses beyond engineering, is one of the issues stakeholders hope will be addressed by the Universities Bill 2012.

The Bill replaces the seven Acts of Parliament that establish public universities in Kenya with charters. If the Bill becomes law, All universities, private and public, would be fall under an institution that is expected succeed the Commission of Higher Education, the Commission for University Education.