University Funding Outcry: Martha Koome Questions Criteria Used To Categorise Students

• On Thursday, August 22, Chief Justice Martha Koome criticised the new university funding model
• Koome expressed her sympathy for students from poor backgrounds who have been placed in Band 5, where they will be required to pay 60% of the cost of their degree programme
• The CJ called for the consolidation of all bursaries, including those under CDF, into one education fund

Amos Khaemba, a journalist at TUKO.co.ke, brings over three years of experience covering politics and current affairs in Kenya.

Nairobi - Chief Justice Martha Koome has joined Kenyans opposed to the new university funding model.

What Martha Koome said about the new university funding model

During the launch of the Strategic Guiding Framework for Greening Kenya’s Justice System and Dissemination of Research Findings on Thursday, August 22, Koome termed the new model unfair to the poor.

Koome questioned how learners from financially challenged families were placed in Band 5, which is meant for the rich.

The chief justice noted that in some instances, children from rich families are placed in Band 1, which meant for families earning below KSh 5,995.

"How unequal and how unjust we are in a society. That a child who has qualified to go the university can be there crying, saying I have been put in Band 5 when I ought to be in Band 1, and therefore, I cannot afford to go to the university. When you follow you find that a child of a well-to-do family has been put in Band 1,” Koome said.

Koome's advice on funding education

Koome called for the disbandment of all bursaries run by county governments, MPs, and woman representatives so that all the funds could be consolidated into one fund.

According to Koome, consolidating the funds will be sufficient for the government to run a free education programme in the country.

“There’s a bursary fund from the taxpayers’ money given to the governor, women rep, given to the MP through CDF and MCA. All those bursaries, how are they disbursed? Why don’t you put them in education and make education free for all?" the CJ posed.

What did the government instruct universities over fees?

Meanwhile, public universities are under the government's directive to admit all students offered places in institutions of higher learning.

The new funding model left prospective students and their parents in disarray, with concerns that extremely needy cases would miss out on reasonable funding.

However, in a communique addressed to vice-chancellors, the Ministry of Education directed all students to get admission regardless of their household capacity to pay fees and tuition.

Proofreading by Mercy Nyambura Guthua, journalist and copy editor at TUKO.co.ke

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