Private sector key to varsity education, state told

The government should boost funding to private schools, universities and colleges, Kenya Private Sector Alliance education board chairman has said. 

Vincent Gaitho said the private sector has the capacity and flexibility to expand faster to boost Kenya’s chances of becoming a regional hub for education.

He said private sector education providers came about to bridge the gap where government was overwhelmed with the demand.

“The churches were among the first private providers of education when it became evident that the government was not able to provide sufficient education spaces to its citizens,” he said.

In an interview, Gaitho said the advent of private higher education, addressed the issues of inadequate enrolment. At that time, admission to university was pegged on bed capacity.

At this point many parents started to take their children abroad to pursue university education because of the limited access locally.

“This gap then created an opportunity for private universities to admit students to curtail this dollar flight. Currently almost half of the universities in Kenya are private universities,”  Gaitho said. 

Gaitho, who is also the Mount Kenya University pro-chancellor, said the government now disburses Sh157, 000 per student in public universities compared to Sh67, 000 in private universities.

 “Treasury is the biggest beneficiary while students enjoy comfort of private sector ambience and conducive environment offered in the private institutions," he said. 

"There is always heavy traffic towards private universities whenever the government opens the inter-universities transfer window.” 

Gaitho said the political class and the incoming government to think of better ways of making public universities centres of excellence.

This is to help address national development issues instead of making them centres of achieving shallow political interests.

“It is a high time that we cast the net wider by making the country an education hub for international students rather than fight over what the Kenyan catchment can offer.” 

He said education is a big undertaking as evidenced by the huge national budget allocation.

 “Speaking of access, the private sector also plays a role in absorbing a lot of the human resource churned into the labour market. Can you imagine if all students who graduate had to be employed in the public sector?" Gaitho said. 

"Private sector has provided opportunities across board. Access for students, academia, support staff and industry. Government appreciates these interventions and also supports students to access university education by providing capitation.

 “This in itself is an opportunity for private sector players to collaborate with academia to uplift the training in higher education in Kenya.”

He said Kepsa education board sector is a significant enabler recognised for the efforts it puts to articulate education matters and, more so, in skills development which promotes industry – academia linkages.

The other sector boards are also top consumers of output of human capital from the education sector.

“The biggest opportunity is on how the collaboration will solve the human capacity issues as expressed by others sectors," Gaitho said. 

"Some of the possible areas of collaboration include research, where industry may undertake consultancies from tertiary institutions which can solve industry challenges and improve their competitiveness.

"Another is for industry to offer internship, attachment and apprenticeship opportunities to students to improve on competencies and for a better qualified labour force.” 

He said for a long time, the term “half baked” graduate has been used to describe the calibre of students graduating from our local universities and colleges.

 “The question is, to what extent do we get to graduate 'fully baked' students? This issue can be sufficiently addressed when there is a structured industry-academia linkages framework.” 

(edited by Amol Awuor)