Egerton University, one of the 30 public universities in Kenya, has issued a notice of redundancies to over 500 of its staff due to financial difficulties.
The university, which has been struggling with debts of over Ksh.8 billion ($73 million) for the past three years, has been paying its lecturers only 57% of their salaries, leading to numerous strikes by staff members.
The university’s management has scheduled a meeting on February 28, 2023, where the Vice Chancellor will disclose details of the redundancies.
The notice has caused anxiety among the affected staff, who are already facing financial difficulties due to the university’s failure to pay their salaries in full.
The Universities Academic Union Staff Association (UASU) officials Egerton chapter has termed the notice a misguided move that will not solve the cash crunch the institution faces. The UASU officials argue that the university has already lost some staff due to early retirement and resignations, leading to an acute shortage of teaching staff.
They say that the redundancies are targeted and ill-timed, and will not help to solve the university’s financial problems.
The notice of redundancies comes at a time when Vice Chancellors, Ministry of Education officials, and funding boards are meeting in Mombasa for the first Biennial Universities Funding Conference to find solutions to the financial problems facing public universities in Kenya.
The conference has proposed a raft of recommendations to bail out public universities that are sinking under debts and other problems. The recommendations include writing off the Pending Pay As You Earn bill owed to KRA and clearing the pending pension bill in targeted instalments, among others.
