- PBF aims at allocating part of universities' education budget according to specific performance measures.
- They include course completion, degree completion, equity and gender considerations.
Public universities will soon be funded based on four key performance indicators.
Universities Fund CEO Geoffrey Monari said for instance, female students enrolled in STEM will determine funding.
He termed the newly proposed funding method as 'performance-based funding'.
"The number of joint programs with industry, commerce and civil Society organizations in each year will also be considered," Monari said.
Monari was speaking during the Biennial Kenya universities funding conference held in Mombasa.
PBF is a funding system aimed at allocating a portion of universities' education budget according to specific performance measures.
They include course completion, degree completion, equity and gender considerations instead of allocating funding based entirely on enrolment.
"The UF is proposing to develop a Higher Education Performance Index that shall capture the above parameters," he said.
This model he said encourages the development of centres of excellence.
If the proposal is adopted, it means for a university to be adequately funded, the key performance indicators to be considered include a four-year Graduation Rate.
Others are graduate employability Rate; one year after graduation, and research outputs that are actual totals of doctoral and post-doctoral graduates.
Public Universities Vice Chancellors Committee chairperson Geoffrey Muluvi called on fellow VCs to be innovative in securing alternative funding.
Muluvi, who is the South Eastern Kenya University VC, said financial sustainability is not a Kenyan problem but a global one.
"Even as we consider those innovative ways of fundraising, how do we sort out the current accumulated pending bills? Bailout ?" he paused.
Kisii University VC John Akama said the continued reduction in funding of the public universities over the recent years has been the start of the downfall of university education.