The portal expected to host the bio-data of each government-sponsored student will assist in the computing of funding disbursed to the institutions.
Currently, the UFB manually collects this data from each university to make decisions for the students, making coordination of funding and accountability a headache.
State funding to public universities is based on the Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC) model whose implementation started in 2017.
The University Funding Board (UFB) is banking on establishing a centralised data portal for universities that would monitor use of public funds and restore financial sanity in the institutions.
The portal expected to host the bio-data of each government-sponsored student will assist in the computing of funding disbursed to the institutions.
Currently, the UFB manually collects this data from each university to make decisions for the students, making coordination of funding and accountability a headache.
“The portal will map the students to their respective study programmes, their year of study, university of admission and other attributes including special needs,” said chief executive officer Geoffrey Monari.
It is envisaged that the hybrid setup will enable self-verification of data by the beneficiary students and universities to boost transparency.
The UFB has put the total project cost for university education data management information system (UFDMIS) at Sh48 million.
State funding to public universities is based on the Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC) model whose implementation started in 2017.
Under the model, 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.
It groups university academic programmes into 14 clusters and the cost of each cluster is fixed. Universities offering courses such as medicine, dentistry, engineering, architecture and law receive more cash for tuition compared with those largely offering arts and humanities.
University education in Kenya used to be free and the full cost was borne by the government until the introduction of cost-sharing in public varsities in 1991 under a World Bank-backed plan.
It resulted in regular students paying tuition fees, accommodation, meals and personal upkeep after the government withdrew universal financial support to the universities. But the government offers grants to universities based on student population.
In 1998, the universities started admitting self-sponsored students to their parallel programmes where fees is pegged on the cost of a course.
In July last year, the University of Nairobi more than doubled fees for postgraduate courses and parallel degrees to ease a cash crunch brought home by a dip in student enrolment.
The UoN just like other public universities has been operating under a huge deficit and is struggling to honour remittances to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), the National Hospital Insurance Fund, the National Social Security Fund, pension schemes, insurance companies, saccos and banks.
Public universities, just like parastatals and counties are required to disclose loans every three months in a deal between the Treasury and the International Monetary Fund.
The deal is aimed at enhancing transparency in the size and management of public debt.
