Varsities risk closure as Matiang’i orders audit

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i has warned that a number of universities risk being shut down after he directed the Commission for University Education (CUE) to audit higher learning institutions in the country.

Speaking at the 31^st graduation of Amref International Training Centre in Nairobi, Dr. Matiang’i on Monday directed CUE to conduct a review of all universities operating under Letters of Interim Authority, in a bid to maintain high standards of university education.

“It is an exercise that I would like completed as fast as possible so that those institutions that have held Letters of Interim Authority beyond the statutory period are asked to close. You cannot hold a Letters of Interim Authority for eight years…ten years and you have no justified reason why you cannot establish a university. Some of these institutions are the ones selling fake degrees in the streets,” said Matiang’i.

A Letter of Interim Authority qualifies a non-chartered university or satellite campus to meet standards required by the Commission for Higher education to offer degree programmes as stipulated in the Universities Act.

The Education CS further warned universities to be ready for a “major shake-up” that would be initiated to improve the quality of programmes offered in higher learning institutions.

“We have gone too far in hurting our higher education we now must change and whatever it’s going to take it will not be easy. It’s going to be a bit rough but we are ready so belt up… We have to face some of the things we have tried to avoid in the past so that we look at the quality of what we are doing and quality of programmes we offer,” he said.

“We have to solve and deal with the mediocrity that we have lived with, incompetence and problems related to poor governance. It’s time for us to have a meeting with the truth.”

This was the last graduation for Amref Internatonal Training Centre as the institution transitions into Amref International University –  a purely health sciences university. The institution was today awarded a Letter of Interim Authority.