President William Ruto announced that the government will fully fund every student admitted to a public university or college under proposed reforms to the higher education financing model.
Speaking at State House Tuesday while receiving the report Developing a New Vision for Kenya: Towards a First World Nation, Ruto said the changes, contained in amendments before Parliament, aim to ensure that financial background does not prevent qualified students from accessing higher education.
He said the government is moving to a universal funding approach after earlier strategies failed to meet the needs of both students and institutions.
“It will not matter the background of any child in Kenya, but how good they are,” Ruto said.
The President said his administration had tested several funding models, including a differentiated system, but acknowledged that the approach did not achieve the intended results. He added that the model contributed to most universities shutting down.
“Going into the future, we have tried to grapple with how to fund our universities. We tried the differentiated model. It did not work because it made most universities close down,” he said.
Ruto said the government is abandoning its tiered funding model for higher education in favor of a universal system. He explained that officials previously introduced a setup where families contributed based on their financial standing, but the state has now decided to cover the bill for all students through newly submitted parliamentary amendments.
“We have worked on what we thought was equity, where parents would pay. Now we are moving to universal under the amendments we have taken to Parliament,” he said.
If lawmakers pass the proposed changes, the government will completely finance every student who earns a spot in a college or university.
“Going forward, any student who has passed and is placed in a college or university, each of them will get full funding for their education,” the president said.
While the new plan guarantees full state support, President Ruto noted that parents can still voluntarily pay for their children’s tuition if they choose to do so.
“It will be the choice of parents to pay. If they don’t want to pay, we have a model to pay for them. We are doing it because we want to be deliberate,” Ruto said.
The sudden shift comes as the administration attempts to salvage its higher education strategy following intense public backlash and mounting legal hurdles over the previous system.
The post Ruto Says Government Will Fully Fund Every Student Placed in University or College appeared first on Bossnana.
