In what could turn out to be a shocker to students, the government through Education CS Ezekiel Machogu has announced that it will no longer fund universities and colleges.

The CS urged the institutions of higher learning to instead look for alternative sources of income. He said this while at Dedan Kimathi University in Nyeri.

“We are encouraging that they must generate their own revenue because the ex-checker as it is now is not going to be able to continue funding more because in Kenya education takes 25.9 per cent so we have to find other ways of creating and generating revenue for universities and they have to look at other revenue schemes,” he stated.

This comes even as universities experience a cash crunch which has had a profound effect on their operations. The cash strapped institutions  are currently facing a financial crisis and collectively owe government agencies and pension schemes about Kshh56.1 billion as of June 30, 2022.

According to Universities Fund CEO Geoffrey Monari, the figure includes debts owed to lecturers, pension schemes, Saccos, loan deductions and taxes owed to the Kenya Revenue Authority.

This has been caused by reduction of allocation per student funded by the government via the  Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (Kuccps)  program. The government is supposed to fund upto 80% of the fees but currently only funds 44%.

“There exists a budget deficit of Ksh39.9 billion. With the number of graduates expected to exit universities in the 2021/22 year standing at 92,950 students, Ksh12.6 billion will be freed for the incoming cohort,” he explained.

Government spending on Education is about 26% of the national budget and seemingly the government wants to cut on Education spending.