University lecturers have expressed their frustrations with the government’s failure to consider some of their demands before implementing the 100% transition from primary to secondary school.
Universities and other institutions of higher learning are undergoing a crisis with the looming mass admissions in 2023.
Dons have revealed that institutions of education are understaffed with most of them relying on part-time lecturers in running their academic activities.
According to the lecturers, the government came up with a 100 per cent policy from primary to secondary and students are now set to transition to university yet the institutions are depending on part-time lecturers.
Constantine Wasonga the Secretary General of the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) has revealed that public universities have been chronically underfunded.
According to Wasonga, the readiness of most universities to accept new students is also being affected by a lack of resources.
UASU called on President Ruto’s administration to allocate more funds for the recruitment of lecturers to support mass transition and enforce the 100% transition rate.
They said that mass recruitment should be done concurrently with the recruitment of the 58,000 teachers in institutions of basic education (primary and secondary schools) in this financial year.
The academic calendar is set to normalize in the coming year with disruption having been occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The government closed all institutions of learning in 2020 following the reporting of the first case of COVID-19 in the country to curb its spread.
Normalization of the school calendar will be informed by undertaking policy reviews proposed by President Ruto’s Working Party Education Reforms to review the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
Among the issues that President Ruto wants to address is the deployment of teachers and funding of institutions.
The dons are also calling for the government to address collective bargaining agreements in order to align their pay and benefits.