{"id":71444,"date":"2024-01-23T00:26:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T05:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=71444"},"modified":"2024-01-23T00:26:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T05:26:00","slug":"kenyan-universities-are-very-short-of-professors-why-it-matters-and-what-to-do-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/kenyan-universities-are-very-short-of-professors-why-it-matters-and-what-to-do-about-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan universities are very short of professors: why it matters and what to do about it"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A Kenyan vice-chancellor recently\u00a0went public<\/a>\u00a0about the scarcity of university professors. There are fewer than 1,000 professors for the country\u2019s 68 universities and 562,925 students. That is an average of around 563 students per professor. South Africa has around\u00a04,034 professors<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a01,112,439<\/a>\u00a0students \u2013 around 275 students per professor.<\/p>\n

Professors occupy the highest teaching rank in the university. They reach this rank by distinguishing themselves in teaching, research, scholarship and service. They should publish extensively in renowned journals, generate substantial research grants and conduct community engagement activities that make an impact.<\/p>\n

In recent decades, a massive expansion of Kenya\u2019s university system has occurred against a stagnant or declining professorial class. In\u00a02010<\/a>, for instance, Kenya had 32 universities with an enrolment of around 177,175 students. Today, the number of universities has more than doubled and enrolment has\u00a0more than tripled<\/a>. There were only\u00a0238 professors<\/a>\u00a0with an average of 774 students per professor. Thus, while enrolment in universities has surged by over 31%, the average number of student per professor has decreased by a similar amount (27%), suggesting a consistent pattern of low ratio of professors relative to student enrolments.<\/p>\n

For public universities alone, government data indicates that the student population has surged by 70% while that of professors has grown by only\u00a011% in the last 10 years<\/a>. This dearth of professors has implications for academic leadership, knowledge generation, mentorship and university reputation in a competitive global academic environment.<\/p>\n

My scholarly interest is in African higher education, with emphasis on finance, privatisation, marketisation, governance, equity and policy. In my view, the main reasons for the shortage of professors in Kenya are well documented. These are the low graduation of PhD degree holders, rapid expansion of the university system, heavy workload, absence of an institutional culture that supports academic scholarship, and departure of prominent academics from the universities.<\/p>\n

To remedy the situation, universities could take three immediate actions:<\/p>\n