The latest data shows that government-sponsored students dropped 62.3 percent to 694 in the year ended June 2021 from 1,840 in the 2017/18 period.
The drop comes at the back of a terrorist attack on the biggest public university in the northern Kenya region where militants killed dozens of students in a dawn attack that lasted more than 15 hours.
Parents of 28 students who lost their lives during a terror attack on the institutions have sued the government for compensation.
The number of government-sponsored students joining Garissa University College has nearly dropped by half in the past four years, highlighting the impact of a terrorist attack on the institution in 2015.
The latest data shows that government-sponsored students dropped 62.3 percent to 694 in the year ended June 2021 from 1,840 in the 2017/18 period.
The drop comes at the back of a terrorist attack on the biggest public university in the northern Kenya region where militants killed dozens of students in a dawn attack that lasted more than 15 hours. The attack has since prompted apathy as students, especially those from outside the region on safety concerns.
The Al-Shabaab militants targeted non-Muslim students in what remains to be the deadliest attack on a learning institution in Kenya.
Gunmen linked to the Islamist group stormed the university and killed at least 147 people in April 2015 — the worst attack on Kenyan soil since the US embassy bombing in 1998.
Students from outside the region who survived the attack transferred to other public universities, fuelling apathy from Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination graduates.
Parents of 28 students who lost their lives during a terror attack on the institutions have sued the government for compensation. They want the court to declare that the State abdicated its responsibility to prevent and combat terrorism as well as protect its citizens during the attack.
The decline has, however, not led to a fall in the cash sent to public universities to fund the tuition of State-sponsored students. Data shows that student capitation from Treasury has nearly doubled to Sh408.75 million last June from Sh217.83 million four years ago.
