• In the developed world, alumni give to their universities, which have capital campaigns and often huge endowments. Not so in Africa.
• Universities need to develop research links with industry, encourage alumni to give. We need a culture of philanthropy.
Image: JACK OWUOR
When we went into devolution, Exchequer resources generally have been very tight in funding pressing activities.
In many parts of the developed world, universities get a lot of money from philanthropy. If you go to Harvard today you will find they have a huge pool of money through their Endowment Fund, which is philanthropy.
Philanthropy is not well developed in Kenya or generally in the third world. Billionaires in Kenya should wake up and say I will give this amount of money to support a given activity, such as research.
Some are giving limited funding to support students scholarships, though. The culture of philanthropy is very new in our part of the world and we are not used to universities having capital campaigns to improve infrastructure.
We largely rely on limited public resources, which are not going to adequately fund the number of universities, secondary schools and colleges. The demands are much higher than the resources can meet.
We also do not have a strong culture of linkages between industries and academic institutions. In industrialised nations, you will find that various industries support various research by various universities.
Again, most of our young college graduates are not getting jobs. Therefore many universities cannot rely on alumni.
Alumni typically support specific projects. It is very unlikely and unsustainable to expect alumni to support the operational costs of a university.
So where is the main funding of universities? It must come from two sources, students and the government.
In my view, the parallel (self-sponsored program) just needed to be properly structured, it is pointless to have it removed.
What universities need to do is to streamline programmes and strengthen linkages with industries. We also need also people who are doing well to give back, we want philanthropy to grow.
But more practically, we need to allow more students to go to university. A country does not lose by educating its workforce.
We do not educate people at the university level for the job market in Kenya. We educate them because it is a good thing to do and the job market is larger than Kenya.
Former presidential candidate and education expert spoke to the Star