Economy

Regulator signals end of Inoorero University with wind-up notice

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The Commission for University Education chief executive David Some. PHOTO | FILE

The Commission for University Education (CUE) has announced that it will shut down two private universities over failure to meet the required education standards.

Speaking Monday during a workshop on the harmonisation of university education standards, CUE chief executive David Some said the State agency would by the end of the year formally wind up the two universities, which have been operating under letters of interim authority.

“The Universities Regulations, 2014 shows how to establish, accredit universities and at the end of the day if they don’t meet standards how to wind them up. This year we are winding up Inoorero and Genco University,” he said.

The formal wind-up of Inoorero, formerly known as the International University of Professional Studies (IUPS), comes two years after it was reported as being in financial problems that saw a local bank put up for auction its then eight-storey campus building in Parklands, Nairobi.

The lender indicated that the building was up for sale after the university failed to service a multi-million shilling loan that was borrowed five years ago.

The building which sits on 0.9 hectare parcel of land was successfully sold to Mount Kenya University at a reported price of Sh300 million.

Last year the higher education regulator stopped the Nairobi-based University from admitting new students on grounds that the institution lacked adequate infrastructure to offer degrees.

READ: Regulator stops Inoorero intake after MKU deal

The commission said it offered IUPS the permit to operate as a university partly on grounds that it had premises that are suitable for a university – the eight-storey tower.

The watchdog had also given the university a two-year leeway to allow enrolled students to complete their degrees, but most have since transferred to other institutions of higher learning.

Little known Genco University, which was licensed in 2010, was registered as the country’s first online university with a focus on distance learning-- enabling people from all parts of the country to access its courses at relatively lower cost.

Prof Some said that the online university, with a physical address at Parkside Towers on Mombasa Road, had failed to take off four years down the line.

“It never took off because they did not have the necessary broadcasting licences. Four years since it was established it has never taken off and now we have to wind it up,” he said. Their website, www.gu.ac.ke, still indicates that the varsity is “coming soon.”

Prof Some said that the regulator conducts institutional quality audit on the accredited universities every five years and a separate audit of the programs being offered dependent on the length of study.

“Public and private universities which were chartered in 2013 will have the first of their institutional audit conducted in 2018,” he said.