JKUAT has 18 centres: JKUAT-MMS Juja; Loreto Msongari (Nairobi); Kenya School of Professional Studies (Nairobi); Diamond Systems (Nairobi); Gitwe Technical College (Murang‟a); Nyandarua Adventist Technical College (Kisii); Lamu Polytechnic (Lamu); Kenya College of Accountancy (Nairobi & Kisumu); Strathmore College of Accountancy (Nairobi); Jaffrey Institute of Professional Studies (Mombasa); Bandari College (Mombasa); Kenya Air Force Technical College (Nairobi); Kenya College of Communications Technology (Nairobi); Holy Rosary and Tala (Machakos); Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (Nairobi); Institute of Advanced Technology – Symphony Ltd. (Nairobi)
B.Sc. in Information Technology; Diploma in Information Technology; Certificate in Information Technology; Bridging course in Mathematics; Bachelor in Commerce; Bachelor of Business Management; B.Sc. in Computer Technology; M.Sc. in Entrepreneurship; B.Sc. in Electrical & Electronic Engineering; B.Sc. in Telecommunications Engineering
Kenyatta University Regional Centres: St. Ann‟s Junior Academy (Nairobi); Nakuru High (Nakuru); Kakamega High (Kakamega); Kimathi Institute (Nyeri); Todor Day Secondary School (Mombasa); Kangaru High School (Embu); Kisumu Day Secondary School (Kisumu)
Certificate Diploma and Bachelor‟s degree courses in: computing; laboratory techniques, forest management, disaster management, participatory project planning, health and environment, foods and nutrition, HIV and family education, early childhood education, public relations, tourism, commerce, human resource development, marketing, ICT.
Postgraduate Diploma and Master‟s and Ph.D. programmes in: education, journalism, distance education in school management
University of Nairobi has 7 regional centres:
Bandari College (Mombasa), Mombasa Extramural Centre (Mombasa), Nairobi, Nakuru, Nyeri, Kisumu, Kakamega, Embu
B.Ed. Arts; B.Ed. Sciences; M.Ed.
Moi University has 3 centres: Town Campus (Eldoret); Kenya Ports Authority Depot (Eldoret);
Kenya Ports Authority Depot (Mombasa)
B.Ed. Arts; B.Ed.; B. Comm. Science; M.Ed.; M.B.A.; Bachelor of Business Mgmt; M.B.A. in ICT; B.S. Medicine
Egerton University has one centre in Nakuru B.Comm.; Business Mgmt; Information
Technology; B.Ed. Arts; B.Ed. Science
Maseno University has one centre in Kisumu B.Comm. and Business Management
Figure 1: Regional centers operated by Kenya‟s public universities: adapted from Mwiria, Ng‟ethe, et al (2007; pp. 31-32)
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So, while the opportunity to pursue a university education is available to Mombasa (and coast) residents, the offerings are particular to fields of study that characteristically have a low financial overhead. I explore this point more fully in a later chapter on reactive discourses of strategizing given the absence of an independent comprehensive public university at the coast. However, I believe the comments included here begin to point to the ways in which a partial presence of university programming is seen by some at the coast as evidence of how they marginalized, and as a reason to pursue other options elsewhere. As some of the people with whom I spoke asked, where are the other engineering options open to students from the coast who did not have the exam results necessary to gain entrance to one of the existing public universities? Where are the medical training options? Where - by way of one often cited example - are the marine sciences programs? If all the university efforts at the coast seemingly fall into these easily offered, low overhead cost types of programs, how else should what the government provides to the people of the coast be viewed, except as evidence of marginalization?
I posed the question to a number of the people I interviewed as to whether the external programs of the University of Nairobi that are on offer at Bandari College52 in Mombasa served any kind of modeling purpose, or heightened any perceptions of the value of university education. More or less across the board, people said that the programs offered at Bandari College are of real value. However,
52 Primarily business and commerce related programs. As one respondent said the University of
Nairobi, “offer[s] some things at Bandari College. Masters and B.Comm. Bachelor of Commerce . . . You know they offer it as evening classes.”(SS, August 31, 2007)
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the College‟s somewhat isolated location near the port – outside the bounds of Mombasa‟s main commercial and residential areas - and the fact that the University of Nairobi‟s presence there is not advertised with much, if any, fanfare, meant that comparatively few people were even aware of the university offerings there. And as was explained to me, the faculty who teach the University of Nairobi courses at Bandari do not, generally, stay in Mombasa and live there. Instead,
There is an arrangement here where a lecturer goes for a week, two weeks, teaches then comes back. Then another one goes. They have even rented a house for the people from B.Comm. They have a good arrangement. (SS, August 31, 2007)
In other words, the university-level teaching being done at Bandari College is being undertaken by people not living at the coast. Yes, the students are able to remain in Mombasa, free of the cost burden of travelling and living in Nairobi or elsewhere to pursue their higher educations. But if the lecturers are flying in, staying for a couple of weeks and flying out, the full benefits of having university offerings available will not accrue to the broader community. It is not simply that a full public university is absent, but that the faculty at this satellite campus is also, usually, absent.
For some of the people with whom I spoke, the effort undertaken by Kenyatta University to establish a branch campus in central Mombasa was a significant step toward providing the kind of campus-based environment in which such role modeling and perceptions of higher education could be tested. I spoke with a number of people specifically about this, learning some of the history of the Kenyatta University effort, which culminated in the unofficial opening – first classes starting in May 2007 - of the campus on Nkrumah Road in the heart of Mombasa.
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Kenyatta University had engaged in long discussions among its administrators and faculty, identified a suitable site to purchase,53 and spent months negotiating. Interestingly, I was told by several people connected with the University of Nairobi that there had been initially interest there in the same idea on the same plot of land. The stories told by these people then diverged on the matter of how serious the University of Nairobi had ever been in this effort. As it was explained to me by people associated with Kenyatta University, the decision to open a campus was an outcome of their examination of the success (and future success path) of their open learning efforts at the coast. I was told,
[The] government [was] being asked to establish a [public, independent]
university, and it had not done so. Here we are saying we can increase our open learning. So, using our open learning arm, and in an attempt to increase accessibility, we said let us buy it.
For an institution like Kenyatta University to purchase, the government must give approval. So, we wrote to the government. The government said we have no money. We approve in principle, that you can purchase, but we have no money.
Now, we thought, how do we get it? So, we said, we could easily get a commercial loan from the banks, purchase the facility, and the facility now can be able to pay [for] itself.
So we wrote a proposal about the purchase of this place. It went through the Council. It went through the government, and got approval. And we were given a commercial loan from a commercial bank. We purchased the facility using the loan – as a university, not as a government. With the plan that once we increased the numbers, they will be able to pay for that loan – the students‟ fees and so on, would be able to pay. And that is exactly what we are doing. (FV, August 8, 2007)
This description opens up an issue with satellite campuses, open learning and parallel programs that was expressed by a few of the interview respondents:
53 The site of Kenyatta University‟s Mombasa campus is the former Aga Khan Academy site. The Aga
Khan Academy now sits on a newly built campus approximately two miles to the south, not far from the ferry to Likoni and the South Coast region.
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quality of the education available at such sites and in such programs. By way of closing a small circle, here, I want to offer a quote from “SS,” the person whom I quote above in regard to University of Nairobi programs at Bandari College and how they engage their lecturers. I offer this further quote as a means to show a kind of competition that exists between the various universities looking to expand to the coast. SS says,
We need to find out who will be the type of people teaching at those campuses [like the brand new Kenyatta University campus in Mombasa]. Because, will they get qualified people who are at the centers here in Kenyatta, or are they going to employ some part-time people who are in other lines, or teaching in some secretarial or business colleges? You know there are so many secretarial and business colleges in town in Mombasa. So, who will be the lecturers? I will really like to know. Will they be bringing the professors from Kenyatta University? Or will they be taking anyone to go and teach for them? Because that will be the issue. (August 31, 2007)
Most of the people with whom I spoke expressed appreciation for the programs offered at the coast by the existing public universities. But the existence of such programs are not seen in an unbridled positive light, whether they be the commerce studies programs at Kenyatta University‟s new campus in downtown Mombasa, or the programs offered in the suite of rooms of the Extramural Centre or Bandari College. As I have noted previously, for many people these programs serve as prima facie evidence of the marginalization of the coast via incomplete investment. It also serves as the ground upon which people begin discussing how they might possibly achieve their desires for higher education. And, finally, it is the filter through which efforts to create an independent, full public university at the coast are viewed.
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Emergent Private University Forms
As enrollments in Kenya‟s public universities increased, and the public
system‟s response to this lagged, a market for private university education in Kenya developed. I do not wish to go into great detail on the wholesale development of this market, but rather to focus on the minimal degree to which this market penetrated Mombasa and the coast. As such, I offer only a synopsis of the private university market in Kenya, and then focus upon the more specific market in Mombasa.
Similarly, while recognizing that access to higher education (public and private) is an issue about which much has been written,54 it is not a specific focus of my work here. I am offering only a brief description of the governmental mechanisms in place that coordinate higher education efforts.
In 1985, the Kenyan government established the Commission for Higher Education (CHE). The CHE was given the task of coordinating university education and rationalizing the provision of academic efforts across the multiple university campuses. However, as Murunga (2001) tells us, upon its establishment, the
CHE quickly received applications to set up PUs [private universities]. Consequently, due to this rise in PUs and politicisation of planning and development of university education, CHE only concentrated on one of its statutory functions, that of developing accreditation instruments to regulate and permit the award of charters to PUs. Thus, in 1989, CHE established the rules for establishing PUs and immediately, three institutions were granted official recognition while 13 others were allowed to operate on interim basis. By 1999,CHE had 27 applications seeking to provide PU education. (12)
54 See the work of the Program for Research on Private Higher Education (PROPHE) at SUNY
Albany, as well as much of the work of Daniel Levy (PROPHE‟s Director). Similarly, the work of Philip Altbach and the Center for International Education at Boston College would be informative. In a more Kenya-focused sense, the work of the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR) would be useful, as would the individual works of Moses Oketch and Wycliffe Otieno. The Association of African Universities (AAU) and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) each hold a focus on access and quality issues in higher education, as do the individual works of Akilagpa Sawyerr, Kingsley Banya and others.
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Murunga goes on to point out that it would not be until some years later that the CHE would begin to focus on the other elements of its charge, especially those concerned with the public universities.
The CHE remains the accrediting body for universities – public and private - in Kenya. It further sets admission requirements for students seeking entry into university, whether they are coming from Kenyan schools, or from outside the country. The CHE maintains a multi-tiered accreditation system, wherein institutions may be “fully chartered” (registered and accredited), “registered but unchartered” (awaiting approval by the Commission), or “unregistered” (but on having applied, able to operate on a Letter of Interim Approval). When each of these accreditation categories is considered, Kenya has, as of 2006, fourteen private institutions. Of these fourteen variably accredited institutions, thirteen are directly affiliated with Christian churches, many of them based in the United States55.
However, despite the variably accredited private universities outnumbering the public universities by a wide margin, enrollments at private universities constitute
55 Murunga (2001), Mutula (2002) and Oketch (2004) all describe (and categorize the registration type
of) these private institutions, with the latter two each providing a list of institution names and affiliations. Here, I offer Oketch‟s version:
Registered and Fully Chartered institutions: University of Eastern Africa, Baraton (Seventh Day Adventist) – affiliated to Andrews University (Texas); Catholic University of Eastern Africa (owned by the Congregation for Catholic Education); Daystar University – affiliated with Messiah College (Pennsylvania) for undergraduate programs, and Wheaton College (Illinois) for graduate programs.; Scott Theological College; United States International University (affiliated with the Alliant University system, specifically its San Diego USIU campus).
Registered but unchartered institutions: East African School of Theology; Kenya Highlands Bible College; Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology; Pan African Christian College; St. Paul‟s United Theological College.
Finally, unregistered institutions using a Letter of Authority and awaiting approval: African Nazarene University; Kenya Methodist University; Aga Khan University; Kabarak University (Africa Inland Church; former president Moi serves as Chairman of the Board).
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only 16% of all university-level students. By 2000, public universities enrolled 41,000 students, while private institutions of varying accreditations enrolled fewer than 7,000 students (Oketch, 2004). This is the case even as Kenya‟s secondary schools graduate, on average, four times as many students whose school-leaving exam results qualify them to enter university as are enrolled at these public universities56. As Murunga (2001) points out,
In the year 2000, these PUs [private universities] enrolled 6,920 students. They accounted for 14% of the total students (48,745) enrolled in universities. However, the difference that these universities make to the overall demand for PUs is minimal for they enroll only about 5% of those who qualify for university education while public universities take about 30% . Thus, in spite of their contribution, the number of students who qualify for university
education but have no access remains significantly large. (13)
For all that the number of private universities in Kenya is expanding relatively rapidly, this is not the case at the coast. In fact, it was only in January, 2007 that Methodist University opened a branch in Mombasa. At the time of my last research trip to Kenya, from July-September 2007, Methodist University‟s branch in Mombasa had enrolled 150 students. This can be compared to nearly one thousand in Nairobi, and about 800 at the university‟s home campus in Meru, established in 1997.
The university offers Bachelors degree programs in Education and Business Administration, a diploma program in Business Administration, and a series of bridging courses at its Mombasa „campus‟ - a suite of rooms and a set of larger lecture halls on two floors of Ambalal House in downtown Mombasa. The bridging program, which enrolls one-third or so of the current student body, is for students
56 Oketch (2004) – again – notes that, “In 2002, for example, only 10,966 of the 42,158 high school
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whose high school leaving exams results were not high enough to qualify for direct admission to a degree program.
While the university is said to have some ideas about purchasing land and raising its profile in Mombasa, that is not expected to occur very soon. There is a hope that enrollments will be maintained and that a stable presence established in Mombasa from which growth can be managed. Given the degree to which Methodist has expanded beyond Meru in the ten years of its existence it seems likely that further expansion in Mombasa will actually occur.
Beyond Methodist University, there are currently no private universities in Mombasa or elsewhere at the coast of which any of the individuals with whom I spoke was aware. In Chapter Six I revisit this issue, and speak of some of the other private university initiatives at the coast that have not yet been realized (and which may never).
The New University Colleges at the Coast
As noted earlier, this work has engaged me for more than fifteen years. A great deal of change – social, political, economic within Kenya; academic and professional for myself - has taken place in this time, change that has impacted my ideas and feelings about the subject. C. Wright Mills (1959) writes of social scientists‟ understanding and account-taking of the “accidents” occurring in the research setting, saying that
There is no necessity for working social scientists to allow the political meaning of their work to be shaped by the „accidents‟ of its setting, or its use to be determined by the purposes of other men. It is quite within their powers to discuss its meanings and decide upon its uses as matters of their own policy. (177)
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I take the Kenyan presidential elections of December 2007, and the campaign that preceded the election, as a fine example of how an accident of timing – my doing final fieldwork in Kenya in mid-2007 – has impacted this study. Writing more than a decade prior, but in the wake of Kenya‟s multi-party elections of late 1992, Haugerud (1995) tells us that
Ruse, disguise, feint, and counter-feint are so much a part of Kenyan political life as to suggest that nothing should be taken at face value. (p. 52)
The themes expressed by those whom I interviewed for this project – the discourses they engaged - especially as regards feelings of economic and political marginalization, and political ineffectiveness, not to say powerlessness - appeared to play out throughout much of Kenya during the presidential campaign. The multiple ways in which each of the two primary candidates for President focused their