- Higher education funding must make it easier for youths to obtain education and the necessary skills.
- As a task force, we will be objective in assessing the facts and data before us and give fair recommendations on the way forward.
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I sit in the task force reviewing the higher education funding model, so I am not supposed to comment. But I will generally say our work will be data-guided.
While the government is constitutionally obligated to provide basic education, I believe its approach in dealing with higher education is through affirmative action.
The data shows up to 65 per cent of the urban population is poor and lives in slums. This means the government’s affirmative action must be enhanced.
It is a reality that majority of the youths come from poor families that have barely pushed them through schooling, and the state must play its part in skilling them through higher education.
I don’t know where the student leaders pushing for scrapping of bands four and five come from, but from my own experience higher education funding must make it easier for youths to obtain education and the necessary skills.
As a task force, we will be objective in assessing the facts and data before us and give fair recommendations on the way forward, because the evidence will show the majority of youths in university are financially vulnerable.
Another issue for legal minds is the question of tying the youths to the socioeconomic status of their parents, yet they are adults.
I think it's misguided for the assessment tool to use things like NTSA listing of a vehicle in the name of parents to determine that they should be placed in bands requiring they pay more. Maybe the car in question is mired in loans.
I’m a beneficiary of Helb funding while at Moi University. I was the secretary general of the students union and I could see countless students being so vulnerable that without funding they could not get education.
My father was a primary school teacher. But if you used his employment status to deny me funding, or put me in a band requiring higher payment, I would have not studied because he had nine children depending on his thin payslip. And that is the situation of many so-called working parents or siblings.
Member of higher education funding model review task force spoke to Star