EdInvest
News
March
2004
Copyright © World Bank Group,
2004. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.worldbank.org/edinvest
Facilitating Investment in the Global Education
Market
In this Issue: This month's newsletter will focus on
Kenya. We draw on the presentation by Dr. Freida Brown, Vice-Chancellor of
the United States International University in Nairobi at the IFC International
Forum on Investment in Private Higher Education held January 21-23, 2004. Visit
the Forum website at: http://ifcln1.ifc.org/ifcext/che.nsf/Content/EducationConference
Background
Kenya has made significant gains in both primary
and secondary in recent years and literacy levels have risen considerably,
increasing from 10 percent in 1960 to 60 percent in 1998 for women and
from 30 percent to 82 percent for men during the same period. At the
tertiary level, a rapid increase in enrollment has taken place in the past two
decades, however universities are plagued with financial and quality
problems.
These conditions have
attributed to a tremendous growth in the provision of private education.
Access
The Kenyan education system consists
of eight years of primary education, four years of secondary education and four
years of college. However, places in the secondary system are available to
only half of the roughly 500,000 students who graduate from primary each year.
The Kenyan Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) is the standardized
test taken by all students to gain entry into secondary education. The
2,000 students with the best scores on the KCPE are offered positions at eight
prestigious "national" schools. After those places have been awarded, students
are placed in provincial secondary schools and, finally, in the least
prestigious district schools. This leaves 250,000 students with no place
at all in the public system (Buaer, Brust and Hubbert, 2002).
Growth in enrollments at all levels
surged through the 1960s and 1970s and by 2000, the gross enrollment ratio stood
at 94.0 percent at the primary level and 30.6 percent at the secondary level
(EdStats, 2000). Girls' enrollment share at the primary level was 49.5 in 2000,
up from 47.5 in 1980; and at the secondary level it stood at 47.6 in 2000,
a significant increase from 40.7 in 1980.
Tertiary education has expanded rapidly since
independence in 1963. Public universities have grown from only one constituent
college with an enrollment of 572 students in 1963 to six with enrollment at
over 50,000 in 2002. Entry into higher education institutions is based on
performance on the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) for
which an average of 150,000 students sit annually. Public universities
admit roughly 10,000 students and those denied often opt for private
universities or continue their studies abroad.
Kenya currently has more than 250 middle-level
colleges, with an enrollment of over 60,000. These colleges offer courses
in many fields including teaching, agriculture and medicine and are operated by
both the government and the private sector. Another option offered by
public universities are parallel degree programs which admit self-financing
students who meet the minimum admission criteria (an average grade of C+ or
better). This program has proven popular because of its flexible entry
requirements, the option of condensed programs as well as evening and weekend
classes. Public universities have also begun to create private
institutions. Dr. Brown provides the example of the University of
Nairobi which has created a for-profit entity called University of Nairobi
Enterprises and Services Ltd (UNES), a limited company registered in 1996 and
owned by the University of Nairobi offering the consulting services of
university academics. Both the parallel degree programs and consulting
services are an important source of revenue for cash-strapped public
universities.
Quality
Public
secondary schools are ranked in quality by "national" schools, provincial
secondary schools and the least prestigious district schools. Students are
assigned to a category according to their KCPE results. By 2001 there were
700 primary and 300 secondary private schools and both offer varying degrees of
quality, which vary greatly in quality despite government efforts to license and
inspect them. In recent years, the best private primary schools have led
the nation in scores on the KCPE. The best private secondary schools lie
somewhere above the provincial schools but are not yet considered equal to the
elite "national" public schools in prestige and quality.
At the tertiary level, enrollment
skyrocketed in the early 1990s when universities were forced by Government to
admit more qualified school leavers. In the 1990-91 academic year alone,
more than 20,000 students were admitted. This was on increase of 184
percent over the previous year (Daily Nation, 2003). This had far-reaching
implications on the quality of education because Government has failed to raise
corresponding resources, resulting in grossly overburdened facilities and
infrastructure. For example, Egerton University, with an enrollment of
8,000 students has nearly the same facilities that were designed for only 1,600
students. University libraries cannot afford to subscribe to current journals
and science and computer labs have outdated equipment. Research has declined due
to a lack of funding and outdated equipment. All new research proposals
must be approved by the office of the president. Special presidential
clearance is also required by lecturers to attend seminars or workshop
overseas, possibly denying them exposure to the most recent developments in
their fields. With conditions such as these, it is no surprise that Kenya
is losing its educated citizens. According to a 1998 study by Carrington and
Detragiache, 6,912 Kenyans with tertiary level education emigrated to the United
States in 1990 9C. Ngome, 2003). Those who remain can expect to earn
around US$1,098 per month as an associate professor and about $US1,200 a month
as a full professor. As Dr. Brown observed, many of Kenya's 3,500 faculty
members change institutions frequently in pursuit of increased salary. Low
remuneration makes the recruitment of external faculty extremely difficult.
Quality and Distance
Education.
Distance
education can improve the quality and relevance of education. In Namibia,
South Africa and Tanzania for example, distance education is being used to
provide remedial or bridging programs to secondary school graduates who lack the
necessary qualifications for tertiary admission. Teachers can benefit from using
the internet to access current information and teaching aids. However, for
these programs and tools to be effective, high quality must be maintained.
The importance of
quality control is an issue of global concern as international markets for
tertiary distance education develop and become more competitive. Mauritius
is addressing this by having the Tertiary Education Commission review distance
education course offerings from external providers. Another option is to
have certification of students on the basis of internationally accepted
performance criteria. For example, the new Western Governors' University
in the United States offers students the option of obtaining a degree based
entirely on self-study, awarding degrees once the student has passed a series of
competency-based examinations (W. Saint, 2003).
Cost as well as quality is an important
consideration. Dr. Brown described the situation at USIU, which is now
offering survey courses for its MBA online. They found that the students'
employers were not allowing them to use the company computers because of the
time required to download the materials and downloading from their home
computers (which few students can afford) cost the students about $475 per term
in telephone costs. USIU then made its computer lab to the students and
was overwhelmed by demand. She does offer some examples of cooperation
which have led to cost reduction: the national telephone company has
recently agreed to cut tariffs by 50% for educational institutions and
USIU has convinced Government to allow them to aggregate their bandwidth,
reducing the cost of one megabyte from $7,000 a month to $2,500 a month.
Administration
The president of Kenya is automatically the chancellor but can appoint
someone else to the position. The chancellor appoints vice-chancellors,
chairpersons of university councils, their deputies, honorary treasurers and ten
other members of the council who serve to represent the government. The
university senate, presided over by vice-chancellors, is responsible to the
council for academic affairs and for the financial and administrative management
of the university. Recently, management boards have been created to assist in
the running of public universities.
Financing
Primary and secondary schooling had been provided
free of charge until in 1986, when the addition of new courses to the
required curriculum increased demands on schools' limited resources, requiring
public schools to begin charging fees ranging from US$38 to as much as US$380
per year in 2001, based on household income. When President Mwai
Kibaki won the Dec. 27 2002 election he eliminated primary school
fees, creating a funding shortfall of $65 million. Now that parents pay
only for school uniforms, many who could not afford to send their children to
class under the old policy are enrolling their children, resulting in severe
overcrowding (New York Times, 2003).
University education was free until the mid-1970s,
when loans were introduced at the undergraduate level to finance student
tuition, accommodation, subsistence and books. The recovery procedures for
these loans were poor and in the 1991-92 academic year the government introduced
a new cost-sharing scheme. This scheme required students to pay direct
fees of US$80 and offered a student loan of about US$280 per year. A
bursary system was established to assist needy students who were unable to pay
the direct fee. This system was revised in 1995. The direct charges
were increased from US$80 to US$107 annually and total charges were raised to
US$667. Student loans were consequently increased to US$560 and became
means-tested.
Until
1993 the Government used a negotiated budget system which required universities
to submit their budgetary requirements to the Treasury for funding. This
method has been replaced by a unit cost approach (the cost of one student per
year per degree program) (Daily Nation, 2003). The current unit cost of US$1,600
is comprised of tuition of US$1,147 and catering, accommodation and other costs
that amount to US$453. The government's capitation per university is
computed by multiplying the total number of students in the university by US$933
which is the government's annual grant per student. This method does not
take into account differential costs of the various degree programs nor the unit
cost of postgraduate students. Since the cost of educating a student is between
US$2,427 and US$6,207, all public universities are seriously underfunded.
Private Sector
Provision
Demand for
private provision is increasing at all levels. At the primary level, this
can be attributed to population growth, the fiscal constraints faced by the
public sector and by the high individual test scores on school examinations.
Enrollment has increased from 975 female students in 1980 to 5,615 in 1996
and for male students from 527 in 1980 to 919 in 1996. At the secondary level,
32 percent of households reported sending their children to private schools in
1994 compared to ten percent in 1990 (World Bank, 1999).
The growth of private university sector in Kenya has been fueled by
several factors, including the limited opportunities available in public
universities; the constant closures of state-funded universities and the need to
complement government-managed tertiary education. Kenya now has seventeen
private universities with an enrollment of about 10,000 students.
On average, tuition at private
universities is US$1,800. Most also rely on donors for infrastructure
construction, teaching materials and scholarships. Female students make up only
30 percent of total enrollment in the public universities, while gender parity
is evident at all accredited universities where women comprise 54.5 percent of
the 1999-2000 total student enrollment. Most women enroll in private
universities because they fail to secure admission into public universities,
owing to poor performance on the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (C.
Ngome, 2003).
Private
Sector Regulation
The
CHE (Commission for Higher Education) was established in 1985 and is responsible
for licensing private universities. In granting accreditation, the CHE
evaluates physical, human and financial resources to ensure that they comply
with the guidelines set forth in the Universities Rules, 1989. For
example, one of the rules requires a private university to have at least fifty
acres of land before it can be accredited. This requirement is certainly
not encouraging to investors. However, the recently established
Private Universities Vice Chancellor Committee is looking at how to pass
more favorable legislation to private universities.
The accreditation process is rigorous and may take
several years to complete. Universities which are on the right path
towards being granted a charter are given a Letters of Interim Authority (Daily
Nation, 2003) . Private universities established prior to 1985 are given
Certificates of Registration. There are currently five private
universities with Letters of Interim Authority, six accredited universities and
six are registered.
Labor
Market/Relevance
After
independence, there was a massive expansion of education and a subsequent surge
in the number of university graduates. Unfortunately, employment
opportunities have not kept pace with this increase and total unemployment is
running at 58%. This situation is made worse by overenrollment in arts programs.
Between 1985 and 1993, more than 69 percent of graduates studied only four
degree courses: Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science and
Bachelor of Commerce. AT USIU, the
majority of students are in MBA courses at the graduate level. Dr.
Brown confirms that this degree is growing in popularity and in a nation where
unemployment is running at 58%, it is important for students to pursue a degree
which they feel will lead to employment. And USIU is responding to that
demand.
Articles of
Interest
Kevin Sullivan of the Washington Post
reports on Mexican children being denied access to public schools if they lack a
birth certificate, violating the constitutional right to education. Of Mexico's
22 million school-age children, ages 5 to 14, more than 2 million don't attend
any school, including at least 200,000 who aren't enrolled because they lack
birth certificates. For the entire February 27 story see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13571-2004Feb27_2.html
The Dallas Morning News reports on the
University of Phoenix, America's largest private university. Profits
have multiplied fiftyfold over the last decade. Now the champion of education
for working adults is training its sights on traditional college students. It
plans to serve that market by opening Axia College in Phoenix during the next
few months. More than a year's worth of educational research went into the
making of this school, which will be geared toward working adults ages 18 to 23.
See the February 28,2004 article by Katherine Yung:
http://www.dallasnews.com/
A recent article the Seattle Times
reports on the new state budget and a provision which would allow 10 private
colleges to compete for publicly funded students in high-demand fields such as
nursing and engineering. This one-year experiment could save taxpayers millions
in construction costs by renting some of the private colleges' unused capacity.
See the entire story by David Ammons:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2001881994_colleges18m.html
Publications
The United Nations Institute for Training
and Research (UNITAR) and the German Management Academy of Lower Saxony (DMAN)
have published a manual of Public-Private Partnership for Sustainable
Development – Infrastructure and Social Services. See the link:
http://www.un.int/unitar/ppp/Handbook%202001.pdf
The University of California Press has
just published Globalization: Culture and Education in the New Millennium,
edited by Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco and Desiree Baolian Qin-Hilliard.
Drawing from comparative and interdisciplinary materials, the authors examine
the complex psychological, sociocultural, and historical implications of
globalization for children and youth growing up today. This book can be ordered
online through the World Bank infoshop at:
http://www.worldbankinfoshop.org/ecommerce/
Events
The Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. will be
holding a conference on school choice on May 27, 2004. This conference
will examine school choice policies around the world and seek to draw out
critical lessons for the school choice movement in America. A select group of
international scholars will examine to what degree school choice policies have
increased government control or encouraged competitive, free, and thriving
education markets.
Register
online at: http://www.cato.org/events/schoolchoice/index.html
The Consortium of Higher Education
Researchers (CHER) is hosting its 17th Annual Conference in Enschede
and the central theme is: "Public-Private Dynamics in Higher Education:
Expectations, Developments and Outcomes". Within this theme four tracks will be
discussed: (1) Shifts in Governance and Funding; (2) Organisational Dynamics;
(3) Public-Private Cooperation and (4) Higher Education as a Public and Private
Good. See their website:
http://www.utwente.nl/cheps/what%27s_new/higher_education_events/cherconfere
nce/
Send comments to edinvest@ifc.org
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