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Kenya to pump Sh1.5bn a year into Konza varsity

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Phase one of the Konza project. A research university is planned for the techno city. PHOTO | WILLIAM OERI

Kenya will set aside Sh1.5 billion ($15.4 million) annually to fund a public research university to be established in Konza city in partnership with the South Korean government.

According to information from the Konza Technopolis Development Authority (KoTDA), the ministry of Education has asked the Treasury to begin making these allocations in the 2019/2020 financial year. The ministry also wants the Treasury to set up a Sh1.5 billion ($14.9 million) endowment fund to ensure the financial sustainability of the university.

The money will go towards salaries for the faculty and staff, scholarships, operational and maintenance costs. However, once the institution is running it will be expected to generate its own money.

“Once it is running it will have its own leadership and they will start generating money through linkages with the private sector,” said KoTDA chief executive John Tanui, in a telephone interview.

Plans to establish the Kenya Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) were first announced in May this year following a meeting between President Uhuru Kenyatta and South Korean president Park Geun-hye.

At the time, Seoul committed to invest Sh10 billion in the university which will be modelled after the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

The research university will offer masters and PhD programmes in electric/electronic engineering, ICT engineering, civil engineering and agricultural biotechnology. Twenty masters and five PhD students will be admitted into each of the programmes annually.

READ: Kenya, South Korea set to sign pact for Sh10bn Konza City university

Kenya’s Vision 2030 secretariat has said that the two countries have ironed out the regulatory framework under which the university will operate.

The institution will be established in accordance with a provision of the Universities Act which gives the President the mandate to award a charter to a research institution with of “strategic national importance”.

“Kenya KAIST will be founded upon a legal framework fundamentally distinct from that governing existing Kenyan universities so that it can attempt innovative approaches unconstrained by existing convention,” said KoTDA in a statement.

It is expected that by April next year the government will have brought on board a consultant to design the institution at the planned 5,000-acre smart city. Construction is set to begin before the end of 2017 and run for 39 months.

The Korean University against which KAIST will be modelled has been a key part of Seoul’s industrialisation strategy since the 1970s.

Currently, 20 per cent of Samsung Electronics’ executive-level engineers have graduated from the Korean KAIST.  In 2013, the university executed government and private sector research contracts worth about 23.4 billion.

Mr Tanui says although the university at Konza will begin from a base of 150 students per year, the plan is to grow the student body just as the Korean institution did.