College fees set to rise as government cuts meals subsidy

The cost of education in public tertiary colleges is set to rise with a fresh cut in subsidies that will see students paying for meals and accommodation as is the case in public universities.

More than 6,000 government-sponsored freshers at the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) will be the first to feel the pinch in September as the government will only support tuition.

“The students will be expected to pay for each meal before they are served,” said a July 22 circular to students signed by KMTC director Charles Olang’o Onudi.

The students have been paying for catering, accommodation and services for the whole year from a government grant of Sh40,000 per head.

The pay-as-you-eat cafeteria system is an income-generating activity intended to supplement the inadequate allocations KMTC receives from the government annually.

Enrolment

It will also help KMTC to delink admissions from bed space, enabling it to start self-sponsored streams, commonly referred to as ‘parallel,’ to raise money for operations and expansion.

Without the restriction of bed capacity, KMTC will be able to increase enrolment, opening opportunities for more high school graduates to join the leading health training institute.

“Parallel students will pay double rates when rooms are available,” Dr Onudi said in the circular seen by the Business Daily. Accommodation charges per semester range from Sh6,000 for a single room, Sh5,000 for cubicles of up to three people and Sh3,000 for quarters with more than 10 residents.

Some constituent colleges such as Murang’a and Kakamega have introduced a smart card that the trainees will use to pay for meals which cost Sh115 for ugali and chicken.

Students who spoke to Business Daily protested the move to introduce new user charges, saying they cannot afford it. “I think it will be better to eat out of campus where it’s a bit cheaper,” said James Kinyanjui, a student at Port Reitz MTC in Mombasa County.

The cut in State funding is modelled along the World Bank-backed introduction of cost sharing in public universities in 1991 and the establishment of a students’ loan scheme - Higher Education Loans Board - four years later.

It resulted in regular students paying tuition fees, accommodation, meals and personal upkeep after government withdrew universal financial support to the universities.

The new policy is meant to wean the mid-level tertiary institutions off State grants and challenge them to explore funding sources like hosting workshops and seminars, running bookshops and printing presses.

The policy could also be extended to Kenya’s 20 public teacher training colleges which are heavily reliant on government funding.

In this year’s Budget, KMTC was allocated Sh1.2 billion for recurrent expenditure, mostly for paying salaries to its 700 faculty and 840 support staff; and Sh400,000 for development.

“We have to explore other ways of raising funds. This is no longer sustainable as all the funds go to staff emoluments,” said KMTC chairman Joe Donde, adding that the government has not been willing to increase tuition fees.

KMTC is Kenya’s sole public middle level health school and has a student enrolment of more than 18,000 taking courses in various health disciplines at its 32 campuses across the country.

KMTC produces 80 per cent of middle level health workers in Kenya.

Currently, KMTC provides accommodation to only a fifth of total students, with the rest, mostly Module II trainees, having to seek off-campus housing.

The school said room allocation is based on first-come-first-served basis and with freshmen, senior students and others with special needs on the priority list.

At the Siaya MTC, there are only 200 bed spaces available, less than a fifth of the trainee population of 1,100.

Helb does not advance loans to students in medical training colleges but it disbursed Sh100 million in bursaries to learners in Technical, Industrial, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training (TIVET) institutions last fiscal year.

Mr Donde said KMTC is engaging the Treasury to explore public-private partnerships (PPPs) to make use of its large tracts of land across its colleges-- which largely remain idle.

The plan is to engage investors to develop hostels and shopping malls on its land under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model.

There are two categories of admission to KMTC: government-sponsored (regular) students who pay a subsidised fee of Sh75,000 per annum; and parallel learners who pay Sh120,000.

Regular students are offered on-campus accommodation but have no choice for preferred college. Self-sponsored trainees, who make up 15 per cent of the total students admitted this year, enjoy the luxury of getting sent to a campus of choice.

KMTC offers 18 diploma courses and four certificate courses such as clinical medicine, community health nursing, pharmacy, medical laboratory sciences, dental technology and food science and inspection.

Minimum entry requirements for the three-year diploma courses is a mean grade of C plain at Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination and C- (minus) for the two-year certificate programmes.

KMTC enjoys unrivalled competition in the country in most of its courses, which are not offered at degree level such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, orthopaedic technology and dental technology.

Mr Donde said the board plans to have the college award degrees. Higher education in Kenya used to be free of charge, with taxpayers covering both tuition and living expenses for university students.

The Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) promoted by the Bretton Woods institutions in the 1980s forced deep cuts in funding to social programmes such as health, education and housing.

Helb was established in 1995 to help needy students to access university education. The Board succeeded the Higher Education Loans Fund set up in 1974 to provide learners with grants then popularly known as ‘boom.’

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