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"content": "global. We should not rate ourselves against universities in East Africa and Africa but globally so that if you are educated in any university in any county in Kenya, you will be as good as anybody educated in Harvard University in the United States. This must be something that we must maintain. If you look at the global ratings of universities, the best ranked in Kenya will probably be number 2,000.The best university in Africa which is the Cape Town University in South Africa is ranked number 200. Consequently, it means that the 200 best universities globally belong to the rest of the world and not anywhere in Africa. Some of the best universities that we have here according to global ratings will be ranked number 4,000. The University of Nairobi is globally rated number 4,000. So, as our ambition is to have graduates who can get jobs not just in Kenya but anywhere on earth, it, therefore, behooves on us that our education standards must be those that can be found anywhere else in the world. To do so, we need to emphasize on the research capacity that our universities will have. When you hear global ratings, they are basically based on the research capacity that a university has. The other issue is specialization. If we think about Turkana – somebody made that qualification – where oil is, that is where we need to have research on oil. I concur and agree, but again even if you look at the same region having visited Loyangalani, there is a very big hospital that was abandoned there when the war in South Sudan ended. Some of these facilities can be used as universities because they can be converted easily. The infrastructure is there and therefore converting them means just providing the software so to speak, because the hardware exists. Mr. Speaker, Sir, when we think about the regional universities or having universities in the various counties, let us ask ourselves: What is the best utilization of that university? We now have colleges based on research, for example, if it is marine research, it should be based either in Kisumu or Mombasa. That is where we should also place the marine research facilities. If you talk about research in mountains, it should be possibly be in Nyeri County. So, let us address the issue of where are we best placed and what is the purpose of setting up a certain research university. There is also the issue of management of those universities. It is one thing to create a university and quite another to manage the university. If you look at the Universities Act, it envisions a situation where university professors must necessarily manage universities and university colleges. I think this is a wrong notion. Elsewhere in the world today, General Managers and Managing Directors of Universities are not necessarily college professors. I feel very strongly, having been a chairman of a council, that this is something we must address within the discussion of this matter. We should have serious management in universities through getting serious managers and not necessarily serious professors to run a university because it is one thing to be a college professor and quite another to manage a university. Therefore, as we plan on these county universities, it is also very important to keep note of that particular issue. Mr. Speaker, Sir, as I finalize my contribution, I urge that we support this Motion and also urge that the county governments also contribute towards investing in education. Further, I think we should amend the Education Act to allow for infrastructure of schools to be given to the county governments. This is because as we stand today, the infrastructure of a school somewhere in Nyeri or Kasipul Kabondo or Turkana is still in the mandate of the Ministry of Education here. That money should be channeled through The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}