President Uhuru Kenyatta has directed Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i to ensure that his ministry supervises university education by maintaining the minimum admission requirements and lecturer contact hours.
Kenyatta ordered the Education Ministry to implement the directives since that would block impostors who are looking for quick but low standard degrees.
“Universities that do not heed these requirements should be dealt with according to the law,” he added.
The President’s message appeared to support an earlier directive from Matiang’i who stated that his ministry would deregister any university that was found to be rewarding degrees through corrupt means.
President Kenyatta explained that his decision was designed to stop politicians from rushing to obtain degrees in the shortest possible time in order to qualify to run for office.
Kenyatta, who was speaking in Bungoma during the first graduation ceremony of Kibabii University, complained that malpractices by ministry officials in collusion with University administrators were diluting the quality of education in the country.
“The era of missing marks, students progressing to the next year without knowing how they performed the previous year must stop. Appointment of staff should be on merit, qualification and experience,” he announced at the university where he is also the Chancellor.
At the same time, the President maintained that he would not be awarding any more charters to public universities.
