International Higher Education, Summer 2004

The Privatization of Kenyan Public Universities

Wycliffe Otieno
Wycliffe Otieno is a PROPHE researcher and a lecturer in the Department of Education Administration and Planning at Kenyatta University, P. O. Box 43844, Nairobi, Kenya. E-mail: wotieno@e-parse.or.ke.

Note: IHE devotes a column in each issue to a contribution from PROPHE, the Program for Research on Private Higher Education, headquartered at the University at Albany. See http://www.albany.edu/~prophe.

Research on private higher education, from studies by Daniel Levy onward, has analyzed private-sector challenges to public dominance in higher education. As the contemporary Kenyan case shows, however, we now also see public-sector challenges to recent private growth. Worldwide, one challenge lies in the public rules or regulations, such as accreditation. Another, the subject of this article, lies in the (partial) privatization of public universities.

Kenyan private higher education has a longer history, compared to most of Africa, and antedates the public privatization movement. The private sector’s accelerated expansion, rising status, and official recognition from the late 1980s led to concern and reaction from the public sector. Private universities in Kenya grew in number, going from 3 to 17 in just two decades. In comparison, there have been only 6 public universities during the four decades since independence. As elsewhere in Africa, private expansion sprang forth largely due to the public system’s failure to meet the demand for higher education. Private higher education has registered steady increases in enrolment. Some universities--such as the United States International University (USIU), the largest of the privates--have waiting lists of applicants. Public universities responded to this development by mounting privately sponsored Module II programs. Such programs are increasingly common not only in Africa but also in Eastern Europe and other regions that have seen rapid emergence and growth of private higher education and now see public-sector reaction.

For one thing, tuition is as high in Kenya’s Module II programs as in similar programs at Kenya’s private universities (sometimes even higher because the publics have the advantage of more qualified staff, better facilities, and, crucially, name recognition). The public Module II programs include some fields only peripheral to the curriculum at private universities in Kenya (medicine, engineering) but that privates in some countries have been able to build up over time. The Module II programs include some that have been “safe havens” for privates (e.g., business). For instance, while total enrolments at the USIU (popular for its business courses) was 2,931 in 2002–2003, Module II business programs at the largest public institution, the University of Nairobi (UoN), alone enrolled 2,683 students. Overall, just over half of UoN’s 27,839 students were enrolled in Module II programs. All its (1,220) nondegree (diploma) students were in Module II, and at the postgraduate level there were twice as many as in regular programs. Thus, in 2002–2003, the university raised U.S.$15,914,639 from these programs. This is equivalent to two-thirds of direct government funding and one-third of the university’s total income. At Kenya’s four major private universities, tuition income averages 72 percent of total income.

One result is that while public universities increase their enrolments and financial health--thanks to privatization--and despite there being three times as many private as public universities, the private share of enrolments is declining. From 20 percent in 1999 and 16 percent in 2001, the enrolment share fell to 13 percent in 2003. Privatization of the publics thus appears to be occurring at the expense of private growth. The sustainability of this tendency is contestable, but all indications are that enrolments in the Module II programs have yet to surge. This point does not negate the fact that private enrolments continue to grow (by 16 percent over the last three years) and that the public-sector increase has much to do, as in China, with previously low public enrolments.

Pointedly, the privates seem to have been unprepared for the current privatizing trends in the publics. A fundamental question then is what the future holds for the privates and the publics. Clearly, privatization will continue--whether at public or private institutions. The privates would have to chart out effective responses to the privatizing public institutions and innovate to remain competitive. Initially, at least, the privates have failed to uphold the behavioral characteristics of business, not countering fresh competition effectively, despite having some clear comparative advantages.

While Kenya’s privatizing public universities challenge their private counterparts, both face increasing entrepreneurial challenges from foreign universities operating with local Kenyan colleges. Examples include the University of South Africa, University of London, Technikon of South Africa, the University of Free State, the Australian Studies Institute, and a consortium of British universities represented by the British Council. Foreign universities have taken advantage of the liberalized environment and have brought the competition to the door of local universities. Only the public universities seem to mount credible responses to this challenge, interestingly by franchising local private tertiary colleges to offer programs on their behalf.

In conclusion, while private higher education internationally claims to represent the entrepreneurial alternatives and future growth, Kenya shows the limitations of this trend. It appears that public and foreign institutions might fight for entrepreneurial terrain, thus placing a fresh challenge before private universities.