Nightmare To Private Universities As Concerns Raised The Government Audit.
Introduction
Following an Audit report on private Universities it clearly shows that the government could have lost close to one billion Kenyan shillings in a programme posted to students in those universities and part of their tution fees paid for by the State is not shown were it worked for.
It depicts basing the administration of the retired president Uhuru Kenyatta showing the programmes were underfunded whereby as per now the government owes private universities billions of money.
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From Nancy Gathugu who is the Auditor-General, basing on her report, the budgeted amount and the funds released by the National Treasury and as well as the amount disbursements to the universities does not ryhme hence showing a high lack of consistency.
How was money spent in universities?
In this glaring discrepancies on Ms Gathungu’s report questions the expenditure of over kshs. 883.3 million after which kshs. 15,762,573,515 was disbursed on the lastest cases. The money shows that it lacked legal backing to the universities whereby it indicated students not placed by the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS), students for periods exceeding the duration of their academic programmes, students on deferred or long academic leave, already graduated students as well as duplicated disbursements hence hiding clear information.
Why was Auditing Carried out ?
With the introduction of a new funding model, the government of Kenya was forced to carry out the Auditor-General report since the programme started in 2016 upto June this year when the programme is likely to come to an end. The National Assembly requested auditing to be carried out in this year March inorder to ascertain how government money is utilized in the private universities mainly and whether it added value to the citizens.
“The audit highlighted various irregularities and weaknesses in the management of capitation funds disbursed to private universities that could result in loss of public funds. These included non-compliance with the relevant provisions of the Public Finance Management Act, 2012 and the universities Act, 2012,” the report reads.
” In addition, there are internal controls weakness including lack of proper authorization and approvals of capitation disbursements to government-sponsored students in private universities.”
On the other side of the state Department of Higher Education, Ms Gathungu has remarked that money amounting to kshs.162,365,484 which was not received in the institutions but as been disbursed to private university students should be accounted for.
” Further, the Universities Fund (UF) board and the state development should reconcile their records and explain the excess disbursements of kshs.19,017,387,” the report reads.
According to the disbursements records from the Ministry of Education and receipts records from the universities it culminates the variation of money amounting to kshs.162,365,484 which as well needs to be accounted for. For detailed information will be on Education website: http://www.education.ac.ke
Due to the large number of students lacking funds to support them in the higher level of education, the programme was started in 2016. This was to assist the less disabled families as well as the nation to have learned citizens from the statistics showed a huge drop of students who qualified for universities admission after reforms in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations to curb cheating cases. The reduced number of qualifiers left private universities with few students as the government was to sponsor all who scored a mean grade of C+ and above.
The named programme was catering thirty -two(32) private universities whereby in the arrangement it clarified that the government was to pay 80 per cent of the cost of the programme while the remaining 20 percent was to be payed by the students. For the arts and science-based programmes, the cost of the programmes were in the range of kshs.144,000 and kshs.504,000 respectively.
” Review of the government funding to the government-sponsored students in private universities indicate amounts of kshs.20,295 and kshs.71,035 having been remitted for the arts and STEM-based degree programmes leaving a significant funding gap,” notes the report.
The Audit-General report advocates for further dialogue between the government and the private universities to come up with clear information that can solve the issues raised. It however, does not indicate how much each university is owed.
Further, from the reports only 153,076 students were placed by KUCCPS to private universities but later the turn up who reported were 110,586 showing that 42,490 did not show up. This report will be discussed by the National Assembly notes for example, Mt. Kenya Universities (MKU) since the commission of the programme started has received the highest number of students leading to 24,075 learners from the government during the seven years.(government sponsored students).http://www.university.ac.ke
As researched according to Ms Gathungu the likelihood would be after the funds were released by the National Treasury, they were not transferred to the UF for onward transmission to the universities. But later, they were managed by the State Department for Higher Education, which was contrary to section 53(3) of the University Act, 2012.
According to the special report it indicates that kshs 201.6 million was disbursed to 4,521 students who are self-sponsored since they are not placed by the KUCCPS board. Implying that the named affected universities should be responsible of refunding the money spent irregular to the government to be allocated to the collect beneficiaries.
” Some 9,489 students have been enrolled in the universities for the periods exceeding the durations of the academic programmes. Funds amounting to kshs 412.7 million had been disbursed on account of the students for the exercise period,” Ms Gathungu notes.
Consequently, more Kshs 53.6 million was advanced for 1,116 students who had either deferred their studies or were on long academic leave. Also the Audit shows that disbursements amounting to kshs 35.2 million continued on account of 788 students who had already graduated from the universities.
” The universities involved should refund kshs 17.8 million spent on students whose names were duplicated in the payment schedules. The UF should ensure that no students receive double allocations of funds in future,” the auditor recommends.
Recommendation from the Auditor Report.
From what she analysed, she recommends that UF should devise strategies of assessing or evaluating the success of placements, since she noted that there was poor record keeping at the Ministry of Education accompanied “with clear follow-up mechanisms on utilisation of disbursed funds.”
Conclusion.
Following the new funding model, it outlines that students placed KUCCPS in private universities cater for their own tuition fees requirements but qualify for students’ loan from the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB). While those placed in public universities have added advantage whereby they qualify for government scholarships, HELB loans and also a bursary, depending on their level of need.
The founder of Mt. Kenya Universities Simon Gicharu welcomed the new funding model.
” Public and private universities will now have to be competitive and relevant for them to attract students. We all have to be innovative,” he told “Nation.”
As the education matters news we have hopes that the new funding model we be more beneficiaries to a large number of students as we support the government in place to enhance competitive and educative Nation. More news will be updated in our website: http://www.educationmattersnews.co.ke
Nightmare To Private Universities As Concerns Raised The Government Audit.
