Why the University of Nairobi is limping

The University of Nairobi in a photo taken on May 11, 2018. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • What the UoN needs is a functional and fearless senate constituted by the best brains in the university which will help it to innovate as it finds its footing.

  • Such a senate will, in keeping with international best practice, be the sole decision-making body on all matters without undue influence from the VC, the ministry and CUE.

  • To enhance management, the university should review its administrative structure, which is clogged with too many deputy VCs, and do away with the money-consuming yet irrelevant baggage.

Since Prof Peter Mbithi was appointed as the seventh vice-chancellor of the University of Nairobi in January 2015, the premier institution of higher learning has never been in as much celebration as it was when he was recently removed by the University Council.

GOOD MANAGER

This celebration can only be understood to mean that the professor’s administration is blamed for the many ills that are bringing down the university. And I think there is sufficient evidence on the ground that not everything went right then.

But whether it was Prof Mbithi’s lack of management acumen or external factors like poor funding or interference from the Ministry of Education and the Commission of University Education (CUE), it remains a matter of serious reflection.

It baffles me that among those celebrating Mbithi’s exit are professors of the UoN, who are presumed to be intelligent people. But I think that is based on the false assumption that the university can be salvaged simply by replacing one man. It will still be hard to find a professor of Mbithi’s calibre in any of the local universities.

These professors, therefore, ought to critically look elsewhere for what ails the university. After all, Mbithi’s successor could be worse or much less the same as him.

For the UoN to take off, four things must be done. First is to make fundamental changes, like in the recruitment of VCs. The requirement for an applicant to have held a senior management position at a university locks out top-notch managers. I am looking at a Bob Collymore that we could fish from the international academic waters.

Secondly, we ought to re-examine the whole idea of a professor running a university of this magnitude in this day and age purely on the basis of his academic attainment. This thinking would allow for the fusing of academics and managerial acumen. A very good professor may not be a very good manager. Haven’t we seen very good doctors who have been given hospitals to run only to bring them down?

BEST BRAINS

Thirdly, we have to examine how decisions are made. One of the problems the university faces is that the VC has been turned into a demigod with unquestioned authority. The VC is the university and the university is the VC.

What the UoN needs is a functional and fearless senate constituted by the best brains in the university which will help it to innovate as it finds its footing. Such a senate will, in keeping with international best practice, be the sole decision-making body on all matters without undue influence from the VC, the ministry and CUE.

To enhance management, the university should review its administrative structure, which is clogged with too many deputy VCs, and do away with the money-consuming yet irrelevant baggage, such as colleges.

Lastly, the world has dismantled bureaucracy, leaving only three relics: The military, the church and, strangely, the university. Jack Welch has demonstrated this by numerous experiments at General Electric.

The UoN must move away from this entrapment to allow for the free flow of ideas to fully exploit its resources and potential. If a professor cannot see that the problems that bedevil the UoN do not start and end with one man, I think the institution should be closed; the professor is dead.

Mr Manyora is a lecturer at the University of Nairobi. [email protected].