Seven top public universities are set to benefit from a budget increase according to the 2021-22 estimates announced by Treasury CS Ukur Yatani last week.
An assessment of the budget figures presented before Parliament shows the institutions will get Sh46.98 billion from Sh24.28 billion in the current financial year.
They include the University of Nairobi, Moi University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Agriculture, Kenyatta University, Egerton University, Maseno University and the Technical University of Kenya.
The proposed allocation increase seeks to foot recurrent expenses that have strained the institutions in the past five years and has seen them fail to remit more than Sh34 billion in statutory deductions for employees.
A report tabled in Parliament last year showed that UoN tops the list with Sh5.5 billion in unpaid statutory dues while Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture Technology and the TUK both owed Sh3.5 billion each, while Kenyatta University failed to remit Sh2.7 billion.
The University of Nairobi will be the biggest beneficiary of the funding boost after its allocation for recurrent budget more than doubled to Sh13.23 billion from Sh5.93 billion in the current financial year.
It is followed by Kenyatta University whose budget will rise to Sh8.807 billion from Sh4.12 billion.
Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology will get Sh8.77 billion in the year starting July 1 from Sh4.39 billion it received previously.
Egerton University has been allocated Sh4.026 billion from Sh2.09 billion, while Moi University's allocation rose by more than Sh2 billion to Sh6.93 billion from Sh4.83 billion in the current financial year.
Maseno University will get Sh3.51 billion in the year starting July 1 up from Sh2.003 billion while the Technical University of Kenya has been allocated Sh2.85 billion from Sh1.88 billion previously.
The increase in allocations comes as a big reprieve for the public institutions that had in December last year written to the Treasury seeking an additional Sh20 billion in the wake of the economic disruptions occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Several universities have already written to us and requested for additional funding amounting to Sh20 billion," Treasury PS Julius Muia told the National Assembly Committee on Education in December last year.
Funding for universities has been hit hard by the sharp decline of students enrolling for the parallel degree programmes over the past three years. The universities generated billions of shillings from the students.
The number of students qualifying to join universities with C+ has dropped to 125,463 last year from 169,492 in 2015.
Edited by P.O