Training Architects is an Expensive Affair

The Architecture Kenya team would like to register its support for Hon. William Ruto's plans to reform the higher education system in Kenya.

The proposal to expand universities and introduction of strategies to accommodate more qualifiers is long overdue. Every passing year, the number of students qualifying for university increases while the capacity of our higher education institutions remain the same.

Pegging the number of students admitted to bed space availability at the university is a barbaric criteria that needs to be done away with. The universities would ironically go ahead and admit even more students under 'module II' (the very popular parallel system) thus putting to question their 'lack of space' excuse. The motivation has seemingly been the amount of money 'module II' students pay which is way above the combined amount their 'module I' counterparts pay in addition to the support the government offers per student.

Also, courses like Architecture, Engineering, Medicine and other sciences are an expensive affair as compared to Humanities and Social Sciences. Whereas the former require more in terms of equipment, space and even attention by teaching staff, the latter are more demanding in terms of literature material and can be disseminated to large groups of students at a go without jeopardizing on their quality. It is thus unrealistic to provide equal funding to these courses that have entirely different requirements.

The above comments we are making are not new. They have been on the cards for years, but were never implemented for lack of political will. Several commissions and task forces established in the past decade have always recommended a change in university funding mechanism: that government funding to universities should be based on the cost of mounting courses rather than the number of students admitted.

Whereas the changes are commendable, Mr Ruto and his team must avoid the temptation to hurry up at a speed the universities cannot manage. Experiences of the late 1980s and early 1990s when universities were forced through crash admission programmes were woefully regrettable. Their negative impacts are still being felt today.

University education must be changed, but the process must be judicious and consultative devoid of political theatrics and chest-thumping.

The Architecture Kenya Team.