1. HOW HAS YOUR EXPERIENCE SHAPED YOU INTO THE LEADER YOU ARE TODAY?
Professionally, I have been in the higher education sector for 23 years, this is my 24th year. I started as a humble Accounts Clerk and I worked my way up to become the Chief Operations Officer (COO) of the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB). At HELB, I began honing my leadership skills by leading small teams and I grew over time to manage bigger teams. I found joy inspiring my teams to meet targets and day to day challenges. As my responsibilities grew, I attended various training programs that opened my mind on how to lead and manage people. Reading widely also helped me upscale my leadership skills. And by the time I became COO I had learnt new ways to inspire and motivate my 120 members of staff, to pursue a vision that would drive the institution to achieve beyond its core mandate, which included; lending, loan recoveries and documentation.

2. YOU ARE NOW 9 MONTHS OLD AT THE HELM OF THE UNIVERSITIES FUND, HOW HAS THE TRANSITION BEEN FOR YOU?
When I joined in December 2020, the Fund had not been operationalized and was minimally resourced. I took over an institution with only one employee, who happened to be the acting CEO, the Fund occupied 3 rooms at Teleposta Towers and the budget was only 24 million. However, in 9 months I have been able to lobby and our budget has been increased from 24million to 244million. With the support of the Cabinet Secretary, the Fund was allocated more spacious offices in the NACOSTI building where we currently are. Within this same period we have managed to come up with a revised Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC). And we are currently undertaking public private participation for the university funding framework which will include university DUC, a formula for capital infrastructure funds and new performance based funding model. It is not easy to navigate the numerous challenges faced by universities with huge debts going into 60 Billion, but with the involvement of stakeholders, we believe we are up to the task. We also believe that our new strategic plan will guide the institution to make positive change in the coming 5 years.

3. PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN BY THE DIFFERENTIATED UNIT COST (DUC)?
DUC is a model whereby universities are allocated budgets according to the number of students enrolled in their institutions and the type of courses they offer. The model differentiates the programs because the resources required for example to teach medicine are not the same as those required for an Arts course. Students pursuing Medicine course will take more practical courses, the equipment required is more expensive, and more professors from different specialties will be required. Therefore a student studying medicine will inevitably get more funding than one offering a social science course.

4. WHAT IS THE UNIVERSITIES FUND MANDATE?
The University Funds mandate is to advise the Cabinet Secretary on matters to do with universities funding and related policy issues. Secondly, is to develop a clear, transparent and fair methodology of allocating funds to universities. After allocating the funds, the UF is also mandated to disburse funds to both public and private universities, this includes issuing conditional grants. And also in consultation with the Chair Persons of councils of public universities, the Fund also establishes DUCs for programs offered. We also establish the minimum disciplined differentiated remuneration for universities academic staff. Another crucial role of the Fund is to mobilize and receive funds from government, donors and other stakeholders for the purpose of funding universities. Those are our key responsibilities.

5. LAST YEAR (2020), THE GOVERNMENT SLASHED FUNDING TO UNIVERSITIES BY ABOUT 25%. HOW HAS THIS AFFECTED THE ROLL OUT OF THE DUC?
This has definitely been affected, because in the last financial year we were funding the DUC at 60% at an average of 170,000 per student. This has now reduced to 53.77%, so we are now funding students at an average of 154,385. Actually the funding has not been slashed, the reason you see the 6% reduction is because the number of students enrolled in the universities this past year has increased. The government increased the budget by 700,000KES but the numbers of students increased by 30,000 this is where the gap is.

6. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE FUNDING SOURCES FOR PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN KENYA?
Public universities generate income from government budget allocation and internal revenues. The main source of income is the government allocation categorized as Recurrent, based on Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC) which was implemented in the 2017/18 financial year. This accounts for the largest share of university expenditure catering mainly for staff expenses, administration, learning materials and teaching. This allocation also goes towards capital funding, which includes funds for development and infrastructure, which is critical to ensure quality and relevance in university education and research. Other sources of income for public universities is internally generated funds by university departments, relevant Ministries, agencies and donors who fund universities directly, this funds are usually spent at source.

Public universities also generate revenue through tuition fees and income generating activities. This revenue amounts to approximately 5% of budget required to run the universities and includes revenue from boarding and catering charges, endowments and university support enterprises and investments. This money is also spent at source.

7. HOW WOULD YOU ADDRESS THE ISSUE ON FUNDING GAPS IN UNIVERSITIES IN KENYA?
Previously, public universities used to rely heavily on module II programs for their income, especially for recurrent expenditure. But when the enrolment numbers plummeted reducing the numbers to bare minimum, universities were unable to sustain their operations as before. There are several ways to remedy his situation and address recruitment gaps. Some of these solutions include reducing costs, effective use of facilities and staff, and of course increasing efficiency.

8. AS A FOLLOW UP, WHAT FUNDING STRATEGIES WOULD YOU SUGGEST FOR UNIVERSITIES TO ENSURE SUSTAINABILITY?
Number one is to reduce cost. Take the case right now in public universities, non-academic staff make up 71% of the staff, ideally this ratio should be the other way round, 70% academic staff vs 30% non-academic this will enable the universities deliver their core mandate of teaching and research.

The other thing is to have specialized universities, basically centers of excellence. As we speak, most universities are competing for the same students because they are offering similar courses. Previously there was a clear niche among universities. Say for example, if someone wanted to study telecommunications or science, they went to Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology (JKUAT). For agriculture one would most likely enroll at Egerton University, while those interested in a degree in Communications went to Daystar University. This is what we need to nurture so we can create globally competitive universities. Other funding strategies include commercializing research. Look at the example of Astra Zeneca; it is an Oxford university product, which is providing additional revenue to the university. We need our universities to scale up and partner with industry for such innovations. There is a lot of research that is done in Kenya, but there’s no route to market insight. Of course the challenge here is the lack of structured engagement between industry and universities.

Oftentimes, universities undertake research without consulting industry. It is important to create more synergy, where universities collaborate with companies to understand the challenges businesses are facing thereafter they can embark on research and present solutions. Collaboration between Universities Fund, Kenya National Innovation Agency (KENIA) and Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), can support innovation and research in this country because this kind of effort is what is needed to get universities understanding what industry needs in terms of research and development for new products or to scale up. Internally universities should consider building their capacity, especially on financial management so that we have managers who are business oriented and able to keep these institutions afloat. I also propose that we have a contingency fund for universities. This fund can assist universities during difficult times. Consultancies are also a viable idea, same way we have buy Kenya build Kenya, we need to ring fence consultancies across government
institutions for example Human resources consultancies.

Tapping into alumni associations can also help universities improve their financial status. Look at (Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in America for instance, the amount of funds raised by alumni over the years has supported it and assisted it grow. Most of our universities are now about 50 years old; this is now a good time for universities to reach out to their alumni, so as to create a community to support the universities and students. Universities should also take advantage of public private partnerships (PPP). As Universities Fund we are already positioning ourselves to facilitate that synergy between the public, private sector
and universities.

Lastly I would like to talk about collaboration with County governments. Universities in the counties actually support most county economies. Universities even sustain some towns economically, so much so that it was evident when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. After the closure of all education institutions, some towns came almost to a complete stand still. It would be prudent to have counties also support universities. My proposal is that county governments need to support universities for example easing some requirements for infrastructure development by lowering levies. This will allow universities afford to acquire more and even enable them build houses for staff and students.

9. WHAT OTHER WAYS WILL THE UNIVERSITIES FUND SUPPORT UNIVERSITIES?
UF will not only provide institutional support but will also provide special targeted grants for capacity building, innovation and research. The DUC model is undergoing enhancement to address some of the financing challenges. As the country works towards improving social economic status, UF will lobby for the allocation of a percentage of the budget to promote national priority areas for universities that align with these priorities. Another area we are keenly looking at is the 100% transition directive by the government, which means that all children have a right to education; these include those with special needs. UF therefore proposes that the Government set aside 5% of the development budget to support special needs. Masters and Doctorate scholarships are also an area of interest because of the role they play in developing teacher and research capacity in universities. For this one the UF is considering funding of postgraduate programs at 80% of the unit cost where the beneficiaries can be bonded to a university for a prescribed period.

10. DO YOU BELIEVE THAT THE UNIVERSITY EDUCATION DATA MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM WILL PROMOTE ACCOUNTABILITY IN ENROLLMENT NUMBERS?
Yes, definitely, this is a key challenge. Currently, we do not have a centralized data management system. We need a publicly accountable system that is transparent and can confirm; the students admitted, when they entered, when they left or completed or if they have ever completed and from this we can establish transition rates. This will help us start funding universities based on their transition rates, i.e, how many students graduated during a certain year, if their national priority programs, how many students are in that program. The data collected will not only promote public access to information relating to the sector but it will also enable the Fund plan strategically for projects and improve the management of the disbursed fund. In addition it will enhance public accountability and transparency, self-improvement, and encourage performance-based funding.

11. WHAT ARE YOUR PARTING WORDS!
I will be brief. We want to ensure that in the next 2 to 3 years universities start turning around and there’s sustainable financing for universities in this country in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 4, that is our key role, sustainability.

Geoffrey Monari is the Chief Executive
Officer, Universities Fund