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New higher education reforms in Kenya

Munene, Ishmael I. (2013) New higher education reforms in Kenya. International Higher Education, 73. pp. 14-16. ISSN 1927-6044

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Abstract

In the age of massification, ensuring education quality presents a formidable policy challenge. The recently enacted higher education law in Kenya—the Universities Act 2012—seeks to level the playing field in quality enforcement between public universities, which have operated as self-­regulating entities, and private universities, which have been subject to strict regulatory control. The new law is an acknowledgment that, while private universities have come of age, public ones have begun to show signs of age and decay. Currently, the country boasts of around 23 full-­fledged public universities with a total enrollment of over 197,000 students and 28 private universities, 15 chartered and 13 with Letters of Interim Authority, with an enrollment of over 37,000 students. Though the country embraced the neoliberal tenets of marketization and privatization as strategies for university development the 1990s, the previous higher education law failed to keep pace with emerging challenges of public and private university developments in the poststate dominance era. In a three-­pronged strategy, the new law seeks to ensure parity in three quality-­related areas: regulatory oversight, student admissions, and depoliticization of governance.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: Higher education, Kenya, Universities Act 2012,
Subjects: L Education > LC Special aspects of education > LC5201 Education extension. Adult education. Continuing education
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status: Faculty/Staff
Department/Unit: College of Education > Educational Leadership
Date Deposited: 15 Feb 2016 16:42
URI: http://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/2609

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