Lecturers have called for fair allocation of funds by the Higher Education Loans Board to ensure needy students don’t miss out.
University Academic Staff Union (UASU) vice president Cyprian Ombati said there needs to be clarity on the mechanism used to issue the loans owing to the increased disparity in funds dispensation that has led to those who don’t need the money getting it over those in dire need.
“You find that loans and bursaries are benefitting students who sometimes don’t deserve it, you find students from a well-to-do family getting the funds and those who come from poorer homes are unable to access these funds, and that’s why we want sincerity in these things,” he said.
While speaking on Citizen TV on Friday, Ombati welcomed the merging of the HELB, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Fund and the University Fund into the National Skills and Funding Council (NSFC) if it will end the problems that have plagued the previous systems in student loan disbursement.
"We want a body that will be able to look at the funding of universities, how the money will trickle down to each and every university so that it can be able to accomplish the task that it's meant to do,” he said.
The UASU VP opposed plans to privatise public universities to raise revenue saying the move is ill-advised and bound to destroy the education system.
"We feel that universities should be excluded from that list because, if today you say you want to privatise a university, then it means that you want to make education out of reach to the majority of Kenyans who are poor or who have the ability to access higher education. As UASU, we will not stand there and watch as public universities are privatised,” Ombati said.
The government has stated that as a way of raising own revenue to support their own programmes, it may required that public universities are privitised.
