Opinion: It's wrong to ethnicise VC appointments in Kenyan universities

When the Education CS, Hon. Machogu, appointed 13 new vice-chancellors last month, I looked at the names.

I asked myself one question: Must our universities be managed by professors who hail from the local hosting community? This prompted me to research the successful applicants, and I realised that most of them were from the dominant community, less countable cases.

Have we sacrificed merit and competence at the expense of rewarding ethnic bigotry in the management of our universities? 

At the beginning of the year, when I saw those who applied for those vacancies at our universities, I could guess with exact precision that name would trump merit during the appointment of the VC. After interviews, lobbying has always been done by the local leaders and "interested parties," leaving the merit and vision of the universities at stake.

True to my guess, the names were as I predicted. Why can't we have universal management of our universities? Must the VC come from the local community?

Unless our Kenyan universities lose their core teaching, research, and community development mandate, we must address this perennial issue by turning them into employment bureaus and political tools just like some Kenyan institutions.

Earlier this year, the current VC of Meru University of Science and Technology had a hard time trying to renew his contract simply because he was not from the community where the university is situated. Kenya university chiefs are local-captured to meet the desires of the community's politicians or face an axe.

Recently, the University of Nairobi VC had to 'hang his boots' since the politics have become too toxic, yet this position should be based on merit and not politics.

As painful as it was

I know a DVC who worked in a university in my village as a DVC for ten years; he worked brilliantly and was a strong contender, not only sacrificing for a local applicant to be the VC.

As painful as it was, the situation has been replicated in many universities across Kenya. This sad reality is taking Kenyan universities down in terms of global rankings.

The word university is synonymous with universal, meaning that any Kenyan should have equal opportunity to run a university in Kenya regardless of the local and local community.

Do we need a policy to de-ethnicise varsity management?

In 2018, the government enacted the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act No. 18, changed the law governing universities, and decreed that VCs and their deputies be recruited by the Public Service Commission (PSC).

The education reforms team had proposed that the relevant sections of the Universities Act be amended to allow councils to recruit vice-chancellors.

While the council appointing VCs might be an idea that will work briefly, politics will still play an essential role in appointing VCs.

As long as politics still precedes merit, it will be the old narrative of "same monkeys, different forests" in hiring our VCs. What would go wrong if a professor from the coast region manages a university from Western Kenya and vice-versa? This will de-ethnicise the current problems many VCs face during their university stay.

The only cure

The only way to cure this endemic problem is by putting in a law that bars a local from managing the university they hail from.

This will stop mobilization to ensure that VCs hired concentrate on improving the university's performance instead of managing politics.

Some VCs must reward cronies with departmental chairs and directorates to survive at the university's helm.

Universities were aimed at promoting Diversity and Inclusivity. Having regulations can be a means to ensure that university management reflects the diversity of the student body and Kenya at large.

This can contribute to a more inclusive and representative educational environment. This regulation will help address historical inequities and is necessary to rectify historical injustices and underrepresentation of certain ethnic or racial groups in leadership positions. 

Tribal friends

Accountability is a crucial component. Through a policy statement, these regulations can hold institutions accountable for taking proactive steps to address diversity and inclusion, which may not happen organically since the tribal friends will no longer protect them from the community.

In the end, when we have this strong law, our university chiefs will be more interested in running the universities to the best interest of their knowledge without having to worry about politics, thus ensuring the core mandates of the universities are achieved.

Having a new education policy on hiring VCs will help Kenya realize the Vision 2030 and CBC curriculum through merit instead of political mobilization. 

Dr. Odhiambo, Ph.D. is a Lecturer at Meru University of Science and Technology (MUST) and a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Umeå University, Sweden.

Email: joabodhiambo2030@gmail.com

X: @Dr_Jodhiambo