A directive that was issued by the Commission for University Education (CUE) seems to harbor a serious crisis in the higher institutions.
In their directive, CUE demanded that all assistant lecturers must acquire a PhD degree by October 2019 for them to qualify to teach.
The CUE insisted that those who will not have attained the required academic qualification by then should count themselves relieved of their duties.
The PhD requirement, according to an October 27, 2014 report on Harmonised Criteria and Guidelines for Appointment and Promotion of Academic Staff, will also affect private universities.
Besides the academic qualification, Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed has sent a policy paper requiring all public universities to negotiate individual salaries payable to teaching staff.
Immediately after the directives, the University Academic Staff Union (UASU) headed to court to challenge the move stating that the input was not sought before implementation.
Regarding the academic qualification case, Titus Koceyo, UASU lawyer argued that the CUE breached the Constitution, which clearly calls for public participation before implementation of a policy.
These directives have far reaching effect as many Varsities depends mainly on assistant lecturers.
Mr Koceyo told Justice Maureen Onyango that the 2014 CUE policy was secretly being implemented at Machakos University.
Judge Onyango directed that the two cases be heard on February 21.
Mr Koceyo said unless the twin cases are heard and determined expeditiously, there will be unrest in all the 31 public universities which have a teaching staff of over 10,300.
“I urge this court to intervene to avert a looming crisis in all the public universities, as the directives of Ms Mohamed and CUE were issued irregularly without involving Uasu,” he said.
UASO has named Machakos University and CUE as respondents in the PhD case while CS Amina has been listed as the respondent in the salaries case.
In a February 6, 2019, communication to Machakos University’s Registrar of Admissions and Planning, Dr Susan Nzioki, CUE scrapped the position of assistant lecturer as per its “new commission for university education guidelines”.
Dr Nzioki then directed all assistant lecturers and tutorial fellows to present a report on their progress towards attainment of PhDs.
“The current directive from CUE is that the minimum qualification for university academic staff is a PhD. The commission requires all academic staff to have acquired the minimum qualification of PhD by October 2019,” she said.
The court was also told that the position of the Assistant lecturers are listed under the Collective Bargain Agreement and cannot be scrapped without consultation.
On the issue of requiring universities to negotiate salaries with individual lecturers and professors, Uasu argued that the move by Ms Mohamed aimed at sabotaging the CBA signed between the ministry and the public universities.
The court said that the issues raised by UASU are weighty and require the input of the correspondents before any ruling is made.