Economy

Varsity scraps 14 courses citing low enrolment

isaac vc

Moi University Vice Chancellor Isaac Kosgei. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA

Moi University has abolished a number of degree programmes and harmonised others, becoming the latest institution to resort to the measure over low student enrolment.

The university has scrapped 14 degree programmes, among them, Bachelor of science, Climate change, which has been unable to attract students.

Others are courses on sports management, guidance and counselling, travel tourism and hospitality management,

Also affected are post graduate programmes in the school of biological and physical science while media science and communication and journalism have been merged.

Last year, the University of Nairobi abolished 40 degree programmes in the ongoing reforms in the higher education sector.

According to a report by the university committee that was tasked with harmonisation of the courses, academic programmes with more than 50 percent similarity were to be merged and areas of specialisations created while those with more than 70 percent similarity were collapsed into one.

Courses, which do not attract students, staff and have inadequate learning resources were to be abolished.

Vice chancellor Isaac Kosgei asked the staff to support management in streamlining operations at the institution.

“The department of Literature, Theatre and Film Studies with Department of Linguistics and Foreign Languages have been merged to create Literature, Linguistics, Foreign Languages and Performing Arts department,” reads the report by a 12-member committee chaired by acting Deputy Vice-chancellor (Finance) Prof Daniel Tarus.

Five departments in the school of agriculture have been merged creating two. The Department of Geography has been renamed Department of Geography and Environmental Studies.

Department of Energy Engineering has been merged with the Department of Mechanical & Production Engineering and renamed Department of Mechanical, Production & Energy Engineering;

Departments of Publishing & Media Studies and Communication Studies has been merged and named Department of Publishing, Journalism & Communication Studies;

School of medicine which had 18 departments will now have 10 while school or arts and social sciences which used to have nine departments will now have six departments.

“The university council, management board and senate will appreciate your total cooperation to achieve this objective,” said Prof Kosgei in a communication to staff.

Last year, some 107 university programmes nether attracted applications or no student was selected to pursue them in both public and private universities.

For nine of the degree programmes, there were no applications from students who sat the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam in 2018, and in the remaining 98, no student was enrolled for the degree courses spread across 50 universities.

The programmes have a collective capacity of 6,721 students.