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"id": 99140,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/99140/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Mwiria",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology",
"speaker": {
"id": 190,
"legal_name": "Valerian Kilemi Mwiria",
"slug": "kilemi-mwiria"
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"content": "irresponsible. We must talk strongly against this kind of behavior. If there are regulations about when you should meet a deadline, obviously it would be wrong to ask universities to keep on excusing students who are not meeting deadlines because the university will not run. It cannot run, especially now that we have a big influx of students, and universities are forced to even have more teaching sessions than they ever had. Without deadlines it is impossible for them to cope with the incoming groups of students. We must also appreciate the point that has been made about interference by politicians and the university administration. I think that needs to be substantiated. We know that there were accusations that the university administration favoured certain students leaders, but actually there is no evidence that, that was the case. I also know one speaker said that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nairobi, Prof. Magoha, in a sense was implicated in the riots that took place at his university because he favoured a certain candidate. Again, I think we need to be very careful because we can cause more trouble by talking about romours as opposed to evidence. I do not think there is any evidence that Prof. Magoha or Prof. Mugenda were directly involved in the strikes that took place. When we peddle those kinds of rumours we are not helping the situation, especially if we have no evidence. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on issues of governance, as we blame university vice-chancellors, let us recognize the fact that there are other structures of governance in universities. In fact, the main decision-making body in the university is the university council. The university council is comprised of appointees from outside the university, but there is representation from academics and students. So, this is the main governing body of universities. If we have to blame university administrations for the things that go wrong, we need to also ask what university councils do; who the members of these councils are and what they are doing to improve actual management of the institutions, even before we talk about the vice-chancellors. It is the university councils that manage universities on behalf of the Government and the academics. There are also staff unions, student unions, the senate, departments and opportunities for more in governance at the level of deans and faculties. So, there are many levels of management in universities and we need to look at all those as we apportion blame, or even ask why certain decisions were not taken or why they were taken in a certain way, rather than point fingers at one person, the vice chancellor. The Vice-Chancellor is only an appointee. He is like Chief Executive Officer who, of course, will bear the most blame. But I think the board of management in a lot of cases is key in terms of making key decisions. I agree with the committee completely that we must continue to improve governance in our institutions, and this must involve improving dialogue. We need to talk more to our students even if you are the Vice-Chancellor or the university council members. That era where you see students as enemies or immature is gone. If you go to universities now you will find that vice-chancellors are engaging students. Even when there is a crisis they try to engage students. Unfortunately, as we talk about Vice-Chancellors compromising certain student leaders, there are student leaders who are themselves ready to be compromised, and even sell the case of their fellow students. So, it is not just a one way traffic. It is not as you think it looks. The biggest problem in our universities with regard to governance, and some of the things that take place, is that we also have student managements where, as"
}