For higher education to reach many young people, funding becomes a key priority.
Loan repayment by graduates gives opportunity to other poor kids since education remains the ‘greatest equalizer’ here in Kenya.
Image: STEPHEN ASTARIKO
President Uhuru has rejected many bills during his presidency but the rejection of the populist HELB Amendment Bill 2020 sponsored by nominated MP Gideon Keter has come at a politically charged moment with UDA having a field day bashing the President for it.
The UDA presidential candidate, William Ruto, hurriedly organized a symposium last week at the Catholic University to launch his ‘education manifesto’ where the President’s rejection of the Bill was weaponized to pander to jobless graduates. On Social media and rallies, the UDA gang have used the refusal by the President to accent to the bill as good fodder for populist politicking – after all – for a floundering campaign built primarily on manufacturing grievances, the president could not have acted at a more appropriate time.
The sponsor of the rejected Bill, nominated MP Gideon Keter is a young leader I admire. Little known outside parliament, Hon. Keter has authored some of the 12th parliament’s most progressive and youth-friendly bills, many of which have been assented into law by the President. One such bill is the current law that scrapped mandatory requirement for clearance certificates from a litany of government institutions: KRA, DCI, EACC, CRB, HELB etc, until employment is guaranteed.
Before the scrapping of these requirements, many Kenyan youths avoided applying for open vacancies as the charges for these numerous certificates cost more than ten thousand shillings, a tidy sum for a jobless youth living off the generosity of overburdened parents or relatives.
Contrary to UDA dog-whistling on the issue, the President, as you can see, has assented many progressive bills before. He is not therefore the cold and heartless ruler oblivious of the suffering of Kenyans that UDA is painting him to be. His rejection of the HELB Amendment bill is testament to his wisdom not to cower to short term partisan populism at the expense of long-term national education goals.
Higher education in Kenya, particularly university education is still a preserve of the very few. Going by recent degree fiasco involving some very prominent political leaders, university education, despite your idle degree certificate gathering dust many years after graduation is a worthy investment which will one day pay off.
For higher education to reach many young people, funding becomes a key priority. HELB operates as a revolving fund. The government loans you to complete your academic programme. Thereafter, you are expected to use your education – and your wits - to secure income and repay the loan, so another poor kid gets to have a shot at life through education which is still the ‘greatest equalizer’ here in Kenya.
Repaying HELB loan is therefore a moral test to the young citizen. It is from here the country appreciates whether your education produced a responsible citizen, ready to shoulder his/her adult responsibilities or a civic liability.
The rejected bill would have led to funding crisis. All key stakeholders in the education sector opposed it. Conservative estimates show that as many as one hundred thousand form four leavers would have lost out on university education with HELB unable to extend them any loans. Is this what UDA minions want?
Contrary to what you hear in campaign rallies, university education will not be free in Kenya. Nothing is ever really free on earth. What we must pursue is affordable university and tertiary education backed up by a funding regime that does not overburden the fresh graduate.
What we must pursue is a working economy, creating thousands of jobs annually to absorb the fresh graduate. What we must pursue is a politics that does not make us forget we owe a civic responsibility to our country to not desire to pass the buck.
Perhaps, what can work is to peg repayment to an income threshold with the government bearing a secondary responsibility should a graduate fail to attain the set income threshold because of a stunted economy due to runaway corruption and wastage. Just a random thought!
In rejecting the HELB Amendment Bill, President Uhuru with just a few months to exit once again stayed true to what he has always stated – that doing the right thing, however unpopular, is the right thing to do.
Kudos, Mr. President!
Dikembe Disembe is a political researcher.