QUALITY TEACHING

KNQA regulates, coordinates and harmonises the various levels of education (basic, TVET and university education) in the country and seeks to introduce international best-practice to the educational sector. KNQA chairman Bonventure Kere recently scoffed at Universities still struggling to teach diploma and certificate courses. He said the universities should be focusing on teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as doing research.

“We should not accept to reduce professors to teaching certificate and diploma students at all. Professors outside Kenya undertake research and do not teach students fresh from secondary schools taking certificate courses,” Prof Kere said. He spoke during a stakeholders workshop to sensitise universities and technical and vocational education training (TVET) institutions on the new qualification framework policy.

RESEARCH

Speaker after speaker from TVET institutions criticised universities for hanging on to certificate and diploma courses and abandoning their role in undertaking research. Due to a decline in student enrolment, more than 71 public and private universities have launched intensive campaigns to attract students. The authority has indicated that it will only approve a credit transfer done in accordance with the regulations, and credits transferred will not be more than 49 per cent. The move is aimed at addressing the problem of universities that admit students from other institutions without the requisite qualifications. Qualification framework regulation require those who intend to award national qualifications to apply to the authority for accreditation.