The Technical University of Kenya (TUK) wants funding for universities to be disbursed per student’s name, as opposed to the bulk method to address cash flow challenges plaguing institutions of higher learning.
TUK vice chancellor Francis Oduol told Parliament the current approach to funding public universities fails to take into account the financial requirement per institution and not its staff numbers.
Currently, State funding to universities is based on the Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC) model whereby institutions are allocated budgets based on the number of undergraduate students they register for the State-funded regular programme and the kinds of courses they take.
“Let the money being sent to the universities come bearing the name of the student to address the mess we are in currently,” he told the National Assembly Public Investments Committee on Governance and Education on Wednesday.
By funding each student individually, Prof Aduol notes, the government will have followed up on the progress of students to the next year of study which boosts accountability.
“It is expected that before the next tranche of funding to the student, the university should have accounted for the student’s progress to the next year,” he said.
Public universities are currently unable to account for students as they progress with studies from one year to the next, a situation worsened by growing enrollments and a large diversity of programmes offered.
An average undergraduate course takes four years with the exception of others such as architecture and medicine which extend up to seven years. Along the way, there are students expelled, others have unexplained failure to transit to the subsequent level.
