Engineering students in limbo as varsity suspends course

The fate of thousands of engineering students at the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) now hangs in the balance following a decision by the institution to suspend the courses, which have been discredited by the industry regulator.

Technical University, formerly the Kenya Polytechnic, has frozen admission of fresh learners and teaching of continuing students in the faculty of Engineering Sciences and Technology after the Engineers Board of Kenya (EBK) listed it among institutions that are not certified to offer the courses.

The affected programmes are undergraduate degree courses in four engineering fields namely civil, mechanical, electrical and chemical.

The board – established by the Engineers Act (2011) – has powers to approve and accredit engineering programmes at tertiary institutions. It also licenses all engineering graduates to practice the trade in Kenya.

The more than 3,000 students undertaking various Bachelor of Engineering programmes and scores of freshers set to be admitted to the faculty now have to wait anxiously for their university to comply with EBK’s tough requirements on curriculum, laboratories and teaching staff qualifications.

“The University Senate has decided to suspend the teaching of, and admission to Bachelor of Engineering programmes that require recognition by EBK,” TUK said in a notice dated August 28, 2015.

“TUK would like to inform the stakeholders that the process of seeking accreditation for engineering programmes has been going on for some time,” the university said.

The EBK registrar Nicholas Musuni could not be reached for comment as he was said to be held up in day-long meetings on Friday.

It is not clear how long students will have to wait for their programmes to be endorsed by EBK, but the university said it “anticipates a speedy resolution.”

The breakdown of TUK’s engineering programmes comes at a time when EBK is locked in a tussle with multiple public universities, saying it does not recognise their courses.

EBK has rejected engineering courses and graduates from Kenyatta University, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology and Technical University of Mombasa on grounds that they do not meet the set quality standards.

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The board’s refusal to recognise engineering courses offered at these institutions has sparked several student protests since 2007 as well as court cases seeking to compel EBK to register them.

Professional bodies are increasingly having run-ins with universities over the quality of teaching of specialised programmes such as pharmacy, medicine, dentistry, nursing, law, architecture and quantity surveying.

The Commission for University Education – the higher education regulator – said it was aware of the engineering crisis at TUK and blamed the standoff on the country’s legal framework.

Chief executive David Some said while his agency had powers to accredit institutions to teach various programmes, there exists other laws that empower professional bodies to regulate teaching of certain courses.

“There are two laws here. The National Assembly should intervene,” Prof Some said in an interview with the Business Daily. “We have given them a charter to offer engineering courses. But professional bodies are also regulating courses.”

Prof Some said Kenya should adopt a practice where universities teach and professional bodies only come in to license the graduates and regulate their professional conduct.

Even though university charters allow the institutions to operate independently and offer courses approved by the regulator, those that fail to comply with requirements by professional bodies pay a huge price.

For example, the EBK has so far refused to license about 9,000 engineering graduates from universities it has not approved to offer the courses.

EBK’s list of colleges endorsed to offer engineering programmes are the University of Nairobi, Moi University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Egerton and Dedan Kimathi University of Technology.

“Persons who are not validly licensed are not allowed to practise engineering in Kenya since by doing so they will commit an offence. The penalties for such offences are very punitive,” EBK said in a notice.

Engineering graduates who were denied registration by EBK moved to court in 2011 seeking orders to force the board to license them.

High Court judge David Majanja in a ruling delivered on October 15, 2012 gave EBK two weeks to register the rejected engineering students and ordered the board to pay each of the graduates Sh200,000 compensation for general damages.

The ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal.

“The appellants (EBK) did what the required them to do: to recognise the process of professional accreditation,” said the three-judge bench consisting of David Maraga, Roselyn Nambuye and George Kariuki in a ruling delivered on June 12, 2015.

Kenya has a total of 7,221 licensed graduate engineers according to EBK’s database.

The terms “engineer” and “engineers” are protected under the Engineers Act and can only be used by registered members.

Those who practise engineering without EBK’s licence face a fine of Sh2 million and a jail term of five years.

The story was corrected to indicate that the ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal in June 2015.