Chancellors’ proposal for varsity reforms a prescription for sharing out mediocrity

A proposal to form a commission to manage universities is, to say the least, akin to creating a higher-education system in which mediocrity is the common denominator among the institutions.

At a time when rampant failures in carrying out the responsibilities of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) continue sky-rocketing to a point where Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i, has to turn himself into an inspector of schools and supervisor of national examinations, the proposal can only be described as obnoxious.

By tradition and common international practice, universities have a competitive relationship based on how they perform the key functions of teaching, research and dissemination. That is why they are rated or ranked from time to time. Thus, studying or teaching at one of the American Ivy League universities (Harvard, Cornell, Colombia, Yale, etc) should set one apart, with connotations of being special and elitist in the academic world. Similarly, the fact that Nairobi, Makerere, Kenyatta, Egerton, Moi, Dar es Salaam, Strathmore, Jomo Kenyatta and the United States International University - Africa (in that order) appear among the first 65 of the 2017 top league 200 universities in Africa suggests something about the capabilities of these universities in achieving their missions as providers of higher education in East Africa.

The considerations that lead to the rating of universities in this manner depend significantly on the kind of academic staff they are able to attract, recruit and retain. Universities invest heavily in staff development in the effort to achieve their strategic objectives.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT

For example, a university may identify a brilliant undergraduate student for staff development in a particular specialised area in its curriculum and sponsor that student (through the award of scholarships) for postgraduate studies at master’s and PhD levels in study programmes that often include sending the student abroad to benefit from facilities and expertise that may not be locally available. This kind of investment is only justified by the assumption that the beneficiary will one day help the sponsoring university develop local capability to teach, conduct research and disseminate information in the relevant area of expertise. No university would engage in that kind of staff development activities if it was told that the beneficiaries are to be placed in a pool of university academic staff to be posted according to the whims of a commission that does not keenly appreciate its objectives as a sponsor.

As suggested in the foregoing discussion, universities have areas of strength and interest which guide their institutional development agenda. Such areas define the competitive goals of each university and shape the kind of exchange programmes it may have with other universities both locally and internationally.

ARE INITIATED

Practically all such exchange programmes are initiated by the academic staff of a given university and ratified by its top administrators for implementation in a process that often takes several years to complete. One can imagine the chaos that would arise if a Kenyan university gets into an exchange programme with some foreign university, which proceeds to send its students to Kenya only to be told on arrival that the professor they were supposed to come and work with has just been transferred to another university. t is common for universities, based on their recognition of each other’s areas of strength to get into student-supervision arrangements in which postgraduate students temporarily go from one university to another in order to get the kind of expertise required by their research project. Having a body such as the one proposed by the chancellors, which hires, posts and transfers academic staff, would have a devastating disruptive effect on these time-honoured practices in the world of academia, making it difficult for universities in other countries to figure out how to cooperate with Kenyan universities.

EQUAL CAPABILITY

Since no country has ever succeeded in having universities that have equal capability in achieving excellence and the prestige that goes with it, attracting funds and various forms of sponsorship for staff and students, there is wisdom in letting each university as far as possible chart its own development path and recruit the staff it needs to realize its vision.

The problems the chancellors intend to address through this preposterous innovation in university management (quality of staff, attention to teaching responsibilities, cheating in exams, etc) are purely administrative and, given the necessary attention, can be adequately handled by each university’s administration (especially college, senate and council) and the Commission for University Education (CUE). There is no need to create another administrative monster, whose activities will bring to the universities the mess already witnessed in the institutions that fall under the TSC.

SUPERVISORY AUTHORITY

As things stand now, the Ministry of Education and the CUE already have a tremendous amount of supervisory authority over the universities. For example, the CUE supervises all matters that lead to what may be called quality (including curriculum design) in our universities. The Ministry of Education appoints the chairpersons of all our university councils. These chairpersons (not the chancellors) are the effective administrative heads of our universities. They chair council meetings and work closely with the vice-chancellors (who are the CEOs of the universities) in making most of the administrative decisions that shape our universities. It should be noted that chancellors are not administrative heads of universities; their main function is that of goodwill ambassadors, who should have the necessary influence to attract sponsorship and other forms of support for the universities they serve.

For example, our universities lack sponsored professorships in particular areas of expertise. With influential and committed chancellors, we would be having special professorial chairs in such areas as business administration, applied physics, performing arts, etc. This is the work of chancellors: to seek favourable decisions, pay packages and awards for their universities within their spheres of influence. They are not managers of universities. All management concerns should be addressed through the council chairs, the CUE and the vice-chancellors, who are the direct chief executives of the university.

Okoth Okombo is professor of linguistics and communication studies, University of Nairobi.