Universities do need part-time lecturers

Prof David Some, the commission secretary and chief executive officer of the Commission for University Education, at The Panari Hotel Nairobi on March 7, 2016. PHOTO | ROBERT NGUGI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Commission for University Education said recently that part-time lecturers were surplus to requirements.
  • Its own statistics show public and private universities are in the grip of a severe staff shortage that has obviously taken its toll on the quality of learning.

The decision by the Commission for University Education to kick out part-time university lecturers bears the hallmarks of a rushed and poorly thought out strategy to prop up quality in institutions of higher learning.

The commission said recently that part-time lecturers are surplus to requirements because they give substandard services to universities, cannot recommend students since they spend little time with them, and that most are unqualified to teach since they do not hold doctorate degrees.

While these reasons are in a sense sound, they are hardly adequate to force such drastic change in the running of universities, whose number has shot up to 70 from only 19 in the 1990s. The commission’s own statistics show that both public and private universities are in the grip of a severe staff shortage that has obviously taken its toll on the quality of learning.

While enrolment has grown steadily, standing at 539,749 this year from 440,840 last year, the staffing levels have remained almost stagnant.

The average student-staff ratio stands at 1:34, which is above the Unesco recommendation of 1:30. In programmes such as education and services, the ratio is much higher, even going as high 1:48. The proportion of the staff with doctorates (5,604) is worse, standing at a shameful 1:98.

With such grim statistics, how is it possible to discontinue the services of part-time lecturers, who form the bulk of the teaching staff? Even in countries where staffing at universities is a non-issue, part-time lecturers always come in handy, mostly because they bring real world work experience to the classroom, enriching the academic experience and preparing the students for the practical realities of their chosen careers.

WORK PLACE

The Federation of Kenya Employers has accused universities of producing graduates who are out of tune with the work place in as far as skills are concerned. The obvious answer to this would lie in hiring people who bring to the institutions a practitioner’s perspective and direct contact with the job market. A practising newspaper editor, for example, would be a far more effective catch for a university than a lecturer who has never worked in a newsroom. It does not have to be an either/or situation in as far as the two types of lecturers are concerned; both can work seamlessly with the shared commitment to the mission of maintaining the vitality of academic enterprise in a society that is increasingly yearning for lifelong education.

For universities, part-time lecturers come cheap because they are hired on a course-by-course basis, are in most cases ineligible for benefits such as medical insurance, professional development perks, or even offices or laboratories, as is the case with their full-time colleagues. In other words, universities get more for less. Still, the part-timers allow the universities some systemic flexibility in that, because they are hired on contract depending on student enrolment, the institutions have the freedom to discontinue their services whenever student numbers drop and re-hire them when the circumstances change.

TRADITIONAL METHODS

However, education scholars have pointed out that part-time lecturers often depend on traditional pedagogical methods, not modern techniques, leading to differentiated teaching methods, to the disadvantage of the students. Universities can easily overcome this by introducing a crash course that sets a teaching benchmark for newly hired part-timers.

Still, many part-time lecturers have little time for students once class is over owing to their responsibilities to their full-time employer. This lack of availability outside the normal class activities works against an effective learning process because it denies the students, especially at the post-graduate level, a chance for one-on-one supervisory tutorials with their lecturers.

Part-time lecturers are also grossly underpaid and lack a professional association to channel their grievances. Most feel alienated from the universities because they are rarely consulted on policy issues or academic programmes and structures, leading to questions about their commitment to their jobs.

The commission would do the universities a lot of good by working out how to integrate part-time lecturers into the university system by improving their terms and giving incentives for professional and academic development with a view to employing them permanently. Kicking them out is the easier option, but it does not help universities.

 

Kariuki Waihenya is rewrite editor, ‘Daily Nation’.