Varsities churning out ‘half-baked’ graduates

Public universities are churning out half-baked graduates because lecturers are overwhelmed by the large numbers of students.

The staff shortage and lack of facilities was hurting education quality in universities, the Universities Academic Staff  Union said on Tuesday.

The union wants 23,000 new lecturers hired, saying, its members are overworked.

“Kenya has about 8,000 lecturers against a student population of over 200,000,” said the union’s national organising  secretary, Mr Musalia Edebe.

Dons, he said, faced difficulties in teaching and assessing scripts. “Teaching and assessment of scripts has become an uphill task,” Mr Edebe said.

His sentiments were echoed by Uasu secretary-general Muga K’Olale, who noted that the current double intake in public universities had aggravated the lecturers’ woes.

“Qualified candidates are rejecting offers to teach because the perks are not attractive,” Prof K’Olale said, adding that the poor pay was also driving lecturers to private universities and foreign countries.

According to him, the huge workload was lowering standards, and called for quick intervention. (READ: Why diplomas are the new degrees)

Uasu chairman Sammy Kubasu said the high student population was also stretching facilities in the public institutions.

Better staffed schools

“The number of students is rising at an alarming rate. Some students are sharing facilities and this is affecting the quality of learning,” Prof Kubasu said.

“Kenya cannot compete with other countries in performance because we don’t retain the best brains. Some high schools are even better staffed than universities,” the union’s secretary-general said.

The officials, who spoke to the Nation by phone, based their findings on a survey of public universities.