On Monday last week, Kenyans woke up to the news that 133 degree programmes had been blacklisted by the Commission on University Education.
This rattled students who had already undertaken the courses and accrued debts in the process.
Come Wednesday, Education CS Amina Mohamed announced law enforcement agencies would be unleashed on employed beneficiaries of the Higher Education Loans Board.
This scared the many Helb beneficiaries who are in fact still looking for a job or toiling away in low-cadre jobs, part-time jobs and internships.
Then on Friday, vice chancellors petitioned Parliament to triple fees paid by students to meet the costs of running the public universities and ensure quality services.
This was the last straw in what was a long week for students and graduates who feel exploited by universities and abandoned after graduation.
The National University Students Union announced a countrywide student strike beginning Monday next week to protest the plan to hike fees from Sh16,000 to Sh48,000.
Nusu chairman Makori Orina said they will team up with defaulters to march to Amina's office for a dialogue over the new developments. He said there are about 70,000 graduates who received loans of Sh90,000 and have not paid.
"If the President has waived debts for farmers in different sectors, why can't he do the same for the graduates who have remained jobless after graduating?" Orina asked.
JOB MARKET DISCONNECT
The Commission on University Education last week listed 133 degree courses offered at local universities that are not legitimate because they have not been approved.
This appeared to give a hint at the predicament of the labour market that has continuously decried incompetency of university graduates, some who even lack basic skills for the courses they undertook.
Universities churn out graduates in excess of 50,000 each year, but despite this huge number, the labour market has been grappling with a paradox of shortage of skilled workforce.
The skills mismatch is occasioned by too many graduates with skills other than those in demand in the labour market.
This anomaly leads to wastage and impedes economic growth and the country's global competitiveness. It has also led to mass unemployment among Kenyans.
The Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis report says three out of 10 Kenyans aged 15 to 64 are unemployed. Others are graduates who have ended up in jobs that don't require the academic qualifications and skills they obtained in university or they didn't train for.
This has left many graduates "tarmacking" before getting jobs, which has made Helb unable to recover loans from beneficiaries.
HELB SCARE
Helb has disbursed Sh90 billion to 820,000 students in loans. And by December 31 last year, 436,832 beneficiaries had completed their studies and the one-year moratorium but have not yet started paying. Another 383,150 students who have received Sh37.2 billion from Helb are still studying or their grace period has not yet lapsed.
A total of 213,067 loanees have cleared their Sh21.3 billion, and 153,817 who owe the state agency are paying Sh24 billion. Some 70,008 beneficiaries have defaulted payment of Sh6.8 billion to Helb.
And the Education CS warned the government will engage law enforcement authorities to recover the loans from defaulters, even from those working outside payroll jobs.
“We are also going to partner with our law enforcement agencies to track down those holding jobs and yet are reluctant to stand up to be counted as responsible and patriotic citizens, who honour their debts,” she said.
“This will include tracking graduates working in enterprises such as mobile transfer services, such as M-Pesa, Airtel Money and other emerging jobs.”
But Helb said Amina was quoted out of context and denied any plans to seek police help trace defaulters.
To ensure compliance, Helb Act stipulates that loanees who default on loan repayment, including those who are employed, shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine of not less than Sh5,000 in respect of each loan deduction that remains unpaid.
This is in addition to any other action that the state higher education financier may take against the defaulter. The additional action can be interpreted to include civil and criminal actions.
However, most of the Helb beneficiaries sought to pay the loans are still jobless.
Federation of Kenyan Employers carried a survey to understand the educational mismatch between the knowledge graduates possess and market demands.
The survey, released in December last year, aimed to determine the number of employers who incur additional cost to retrain fresh graduates and which sectors are most affected.
Titled “Skills Mismatch Survey Report”, the FKE report revealed that most courses offered in universities are not only subject-knowledge but also leave out employability skills.
One of the reasons cited for graduates' lack of skills is the unavailability of adequate academic resources and practical experiences.
The FKE survey pointed out a need for curriculum review to put more practical oriented units to ensure students acquire more skills through lengthy exposure in practical training to meet labour needs, and effective implementation of the curriculum by institutions of higher education.
AUDIT FINDINGS
But even before the survey, the CUE audit of programmes in selected universities discovered the unaccredited degree courses during an audit that started in August last year.
Students are already undertaking the fake degree courses after universities admitted them before the courses were approved by the CUE.
The assessment was commenced after the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service wrote to CUE to validate some of the degree programmes that universities had declared available for the 2019-20 academic year.
CUE assessed capacities declared by each of the universities for placement of government-sponsored students for the academic year.
The CUE subjected 1,828 programmes to the specific examinations after the KUCCPS' request.
"To adequately advise KUCCPS on its request, the commission initiated a routine data collection exercise on the availability of academic resources in universities for programmes mounted in various local universities," the commission CEO Mwenda Ntarangwi said.
"The aim was to triangulate the data with the capacities and confirm the validity of the programmes on offer as at August 2018."
The commission said based on preliminary examination, a "few basic compliance issues" with some of the programmes were raised, but arrangements have been made and the issues resolved.
But Mount Kenya University graduate Patrick Mulwa faulted CUE. Mulwa accused CUE of laxity.
"Where were you when the mess in our universities started? As a regulatory body, it is your mandate to carry out annual or regular inspections in all the institutions of higher learning to find out whether they adhere to the provisions of the University Education Act," Mulwa said.
"What we are hearing is unacceptable and can't be wished away. You ought to have taken full responsibility and weeded out fake and dubious courses. You are adding injuries on desperate hearts of jobless young people who hold such degrees. Everyone should account for their deeds. If you did your work well, no one would have studied for fake courses."
Ntarangwi said the commission has worked with relevant agencies to ensure the compliance issues raised against the majority of the programmes have been addressed.
"As a result, the commission allowed the placement agency [KUCCPS] to admit students to the affected programmes. The commission, however, delayed the admission approval for a few new programmmes," he said.
The CUE is tasked with ensuring universities have adequate facilities for all their programmes, and Ntarangwi said the commission will continue working with universities to prepare the legibility of their programmes.
To address the other issues, Nusu is partnering with parents to woo Amina to rein in the vice chancellors and prevent the implementation of the proposed fees review and suspend Helb's plans to recover the loans.