How Module II brought scholarship in Kenyan universities to its knees

It is expected that in less than a month, a committee appointed by Education CS Amina Mohamed will recommend the dissolution of Module II programmes in local public universities.
The inter-ministerial task force she appointed two weeks ago has been looking “into education systems” and “delivery of services in the institutions of higher learning.”
The task force has been working quietly, visibly sceptical of views from university administrators and lecturers alike. With unemployment rates for university graduates reaching endemic levels, the government is keen to revert university education to the earlier elitist model to allow the majority of the youth to be trained as artisans and technicians deemed to be crucial in the fulfilment of both “Agenda Four” and Vision 2030 ambitions.
Module II or parallel programmes were introduced in the late 1990s as an innovative way for universities to supplement their operational capital. They were pioneered at the University of Nairobi during the tenure of Prof Francis Gichaga.

ACADEMIC ADVANCEMENT
The programmes came with many benefits for many people. First, they provided opportunities for academic advancement to a huge backlog of Kenyans that had qualified for university education but couldn’t join as university admission used to be tied to bed capacity. It also stemmed the annual trooping of Kenyan students to expensive foreign universities while providing employment to many part-time lecturers.
But Module II also helped highly commercialise higher education, driving the final nail on the coffin of serious scholarship. With the degrees being sought solely for job promotion, the system was also abused as students pursued degrees at any cost, using all means necessary.
There were tales of individual assignments done in different handwriting, of powerful people being coached by lecturers in the comfort of their offices, of purchasable degree certificates, sexually transmitted grades, and of carousing lecturers who lost examination scripts in bars. All this undermined scholarship.
But the beginning of the end was hardly televised. To cater for the large number of students, and in order for universities — and lecturers — to make more money, teaching went on throughout the year.

MAXIMUM PAY
The traditional academic year comprising two semesters, allowing a third semester for research and writing, was replaced by non-stop, day and night teaching for maximum pay.
Some lecturers would teach in Nairobi in the morning and in Mombasa, Kisumu or Eldoret a few hours later. Those who didn’t fly drove across the country, tired and sleepy, at great risk to themselves, to teach in far-flung campuses.
It was as if Chepkube, the legendary outpost that was the panya route for the highly lucrative coffee smuggling in the late 1970s, had happened all over again. Upsetting the status-income disequilibrium for the first time since the 1970s, lecturers built cathedral houses, bought SUVs and some married additional wives. Female professors simply ballooned. Times were good.
But hedonistic temerity has a way of blinding everyone. It was just a matter of time before the bubble would burst. No one saw this. In fact, the bubble didn’t burst in one explosive event. Instead, it has been experiencing a slow-punctured deflation.

CORRUPTION
First, corruption set in. Too much money tends to attract the worst of the scoundrels and this case was no different. With most lecturers busy teaching and content to make a little money, sleazy, ambitious, professorial big-money psychopaths with the ethics of foxes quickly procured promotions in order to qualify for appointment to top administrative positions.
The opening of the sluice gates of Module II money coincided with the advent of a revolution in publishing — the rise of open-access and predatory journals. Lecturers stampeding to become administrators quickly published anywhere and everywhere, often using the work of their students.
It so happens that administrative leadership trumps academic leadership in Kenya, hence the ruinous competition. The Kenyan university is also the last outpost of authoritarianism after the democratisation of every other institution. A junior academic still wearing tutorial fellow diapers can lord it over a full professor and no one sees anything wrong with that. Not that it matters anyway, because it also depends on how the professor became a professor.

TENDERS FLOATED
Holders of such administrative positions were also the wielders of the big knifes in the Module II dispensation, the ones strategically positioned to chop off fatty, palpitant chunks of the beast for themselves. Construction tenders were floated and awarded — and kickbacks did their thing. So much so that the leaders forgot to pay the people who were raising the funds, the lecturers, some of who are now owed more than three years’ worth of pay.
You will know such lecturers by their deformed shoes, faded jackets and the visible ego-deflation that comes from too much dependency on the generosity of spouses. As frustrated lecturers realised what was going on, they sought to have their salaries increased as a bulwark against the irregular and often missing Module II payments.
That is how greed and poor leadership in universities contributes to the strikes experienced in public universities and the regrettable state of scholarship in the country.

Dr Ngugi teaches at the School of Journalism, UoN. [email protected]

https://www.nation.co.ke/oped/opinion/Module-II-brought-scholarship-in-Kenyan-varsities-to-its-knees-/440808-4570160-agp1x6z/index.html

No wonder the dismal ratings in Africa for our Kenyan Universities.
https://www.4icu.org/top-universities-africa/
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities/best-universities-africa

As we rob lecturers of supplementary income, we put a massive volume of frustrated idle brain in the clamor gang.

Most part-time lecturers have never been paid since 2010 and these colleges owe part-time lecturers money arrears in billions.

The colleges simply squandered the money on huge expansion infrastructure and corruption. And now most of them are insolvent.

The so-called module 2 has mainly benefited the administrators and not academic staff.

Even those colleges that pay, they do it after 5 months or more.

Wapi huko? Maybe USIU…what I know is that part timers have been exploited for years without any pay

I was told this sometimes back, I do not know whether it is true or not but it was in relation to KU.

These guys are a demoralised lot especially after the government awarded them 1k sai I increase…from kesho expect very minimal output from them and if the trend continues standards will drop hadi our degrees will be worthless

Module programs can’t die !

Most of universities are in this state of insolvence because of part-time lecturers. These guys file fictitious teaching claims in collusion with their CODs, get full pay in classes that lack quorum, teach one class but split it into several teaching claims, they look for classes then subcontract masters students where they are paid 2000 per hour but pay these students 500 & pocket the difference list is endless. They milked these universities dry let them now buy arimis it is their turn.

It is dying a natural death slowly. Actually Matiang’i initiated their death process

module 2 degree is a semi-degree if you consider the time students take to acquire it,it is all about making money and giving out papers in the name of certificates (if you went through the module 2 program,nisamehe)

I agree with you on this. It is the thieving culture we have developed in this country, one is tempted to think it is genetic. For example, in education courses, these lecturers are sent to far flung counties to assess students during their TP. This assessment is supposed to be done in class, but what these people used do or are doing is to call all the students that one is supposed to assess and request them to meet at a central point or centre. The lecturer just sign for them whatever they sign and that is it. Work that was scheduled to take a week or two is done in a day, and the lecturer goes his or her way, may be to moonlight in another college

This is just similar to how powerful politicians killed a good public transport system in order to profit from private transport (matatus). Nearly 30yrs later, we are trying to get rid of matatus and bring back public transport…

Corrupt system it is. Rub my back I rub yours. You find lecturers not teaching but giving handouts & since students are also required to evaluate lecturers at the end of the course then no way lecturers can fail these students. The end result deteriorating quality in university education.

Just as public primary education & public health services were killed. The only place they are yet to take over is public secondary education…

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some problems, such as later year classes lacking quorum, are not of the lecturers’ making. colleges face the dilemma of when they start a class with seven students but three drop out in second year due to various reasons such as lack of fees, the steepness of the academic ladder and changing goals. does the university which is in contract with the other students drop the course midway because the the class now lacks quorum? how many times can the course co-ordinator persuade two or three students to defer their studies so a similar course behind them can catch up with them?

Can you give an example of a university where such claims are made by part timers? If indeed such a thing is happening then it’s def not partimers benefiting but probably CODs together with deans and even some vcs…in short admins…not these poor partimers that I see stressed with rent and fee issues

It happened to a friend of mine who was teaching at kemu…By 3rd yr class was very small…apparently many Somali and South Sudanese students had dropped out

even in my immediate former school there were many cases of students being requested by the course co-ordinator to defer by a sem so the ones behind can catch up.