Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha has dismissed a proposal to halt the placement of State-sponsored students to private universities.
The proposal to halt the admission to private university was first fronted in 2020 but received backing this week after University Education Principal Secretary Simon Nabukwesi indicated that the Ministry intends to backtrack placement to the institutions.
Nabukwesi while appearing before the public accounts committee argued money sent to private universities should be diverted to support the cash strapped public institutions.
In December 2020, Treasury asked the Education Committee in Parliament to revert the decision to send students to private universities unless their courses are not available in public institutions.
The system was introduced in 2016 after the government revised the policy to sponsor all students with university entry grades of C+ and above.
However, CS Magoha in a media report is quoted saying that such a plan will need stakeholder consultation to overturn.
Magoha further noted that the idea was a presidential directive thus the ministry is in no position to retract on it.
There are 61,237 students in private universities. In some private universities, 50 per cent of the student population is government-sponsored.
Last year, public university vice-chancellors questioned why the government supported private universities at the expense of public institutions.
Geoffrey Muluvi of the Vice-Chancellors Committee said they wanted the policy reviewed.
"We are proposing that KUCCPS should only admit government-sponsored students to private universities to pursue programmes that are not available in public universities," Muluvi said while appearing before the Education committee in parliament.
However, private universities said the policy reversal would be unfair to them.
CS was reacting to remarks by his principal secretary in charge of University Education, Simon Nabukwesi, who recently told a Parliamentary committee that the Ministry of Education does not support the plan.
Private universities first admitted government-sponsored students in 2016 and took 6,312 students.
At the time, the government said it was a strategic intervention to address the inadequacy of capacity by public universities.
In 2017, they admitted 12,275 while in 2018 they took 11,239, another 10,276 in 2019 and 27,447 in 2020.
Just like in public universities, the government funds the students based on the courses they take. The formula is called the Differentiated Unit Cost.
Under the formula, science-oriented courses get relatively higher funding than arts and business courses.
