Africa-Press – Kenya. University of Nairobi (UoN) Vice Chancellor Stephen Kiama has offered reasons for the cancellation of 255 courses from its curriculum following widespread uproar.
During an interview with Citizen TV on Monday, July 12, Kiama explained that it was necessary for the institution to scale down the number of courses offered from 579 to 324.
He noted that a majority of the courses admitted less students while some did not have any applicants at all. That was despite the university allocating resources for the admission.
“There are two different reasons why we removed the programmes. One of the things I said is the through put. The number of students you are graduating and when you look, you are incurring more costs that what we are collecting. Others have not admitted students for some time.
“The problem is that if we have a programme, which is not admitting students then there is a risk because you can only know that you are not admitting students after the closing date. So what do you do in the mean time, you must prepare to receive students. You have to do the time tables, do the schedule and allocate teachers then comes that time and there is no one,” explained Kiama.
Kiama further disclosed that some of the courses were similar in content noting that it did not make sense to have them pursued separately.
“The other issue is that when we came up with module II, people began coming up with programmes. You find the difference between one programme and another is very little. You need to ensure that when you have a programme, it profiles one student from another distinctly,” he added.
While celebrating the UoN’s 50 years of existence on Friday, July 9, the institution would compress all its activities to be accommodated within just 11 faculties.
The Chair of Council, Prof. Julia Ojiambo explained that the new changes were aimed at reducing the bureaucracy at the institution.
The strategic changes were a significant scale down from five colleges with over 20 faculties spread out in major cities and towns countrywide.
School Fees
Kiama also allayed fears that the recent announcement that school fees increment at the institution would affect everyone.
The VC explained that the school fee increase would not affect students already admitted at the institution but only incoming students.
“We have decided that we have made that mistake until now. So, there is no school fees going to be changed for a student who is admitted by the University of Nairobi.
“We will continue to absorb that deficit because it is our responsibility… Moving forward, for a student who comes, we will engage them,” he explained.
There was an uproar from the students body, comprised of as high as 80,000 learners, after it emerged that the institution had more than doubled the fees for postgraduate courses and parallel degrees.
The increase was reportedly influenced by the reduced number of students enrolling to join the University.
