UASU warns of overworked lecturers, demotivated students in new University funding model

The new model compelled universities to publicise the cost of programmes on the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) platform, providing an opportunity for students to select between private and public universities of their choice. 

The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) then places the students based on the declared slots by the institutions which are subsequently approved by the Commission for University Education (CUE). 

During the interview on Daybreak, Mutio painted a picture of lecturers having to cope with a huge number of students who were allocated in an institution. 

For instance, he raised concerns of CUE approving Kisii University's capacity to accommodate 16,464 students despite having less than 400 lecturers. 

"Our worry is that the lecturers will be overworked because to teach such kind of students you need a good number of lecturers. We have been pushing the government to recruit more lecturers because they are overworked," he stated. 

"They cannot match the number of students. In this case we have about less than 400 lecturers who are going to teach this number of students, I hope the government will recruit 1,000 lecturers."

Mutio also said that through the new model, some of the students were forced to study courses they did not desire and hence opt to drop out midway.

He revealed a looming crisis in the coming years should the government fail to address the situation. 

"A student is forced to study a course they did not want to, even the more challenge will be the performance of the course, they are even likely to drop out. If your passion was to study journalism and you end up studying accounts, there's a possibility you might drop out midway," he pointed out. 

"This will bring a crisis where the morale of the students even in class, you may realise they may not have the passion to study."

In this year's selection, over 18,557 students opted for private universities in comparison with 9,622 for last year.

Some of the universities that received the highest number of students include Kenyatta University (8,820), Maseno University (7,848), Kisii University (7,772), University of Nairobi (7,731) and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (7,112).