‘Ghost students’ menace in universities to persist over legal framework loopholes » Capital News
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 6 – Taxpayers might continue losing billions to ghost students due to the lack of a legal framework compelling universities to share data on continuing students with relevant funding agencies.
Revelations show that Kenya University and Colleges Central Placement Board (KUCCPS), Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) and University Fund have no software of students once placed in various institutions paving the way for higher learning institutions to inflate records.
Previously, records tabled before the National Assembly Public Investment Committee on Education and Governance have shown that universities have continued to receive funding for university students who have since dropped out while others have died in the course of their study.
“The requirement is not in the law so if there is no goodwill, it will not happen. Under the current law, universities are not compelled to give KUCCPS the data. If we amend the act to ensure they are compelled so that we have the timely data in the case of death or dropping out,” KUCCPS CEO Mercy Wahome.
Lawmakers raised concerns about missing digital software to track data on continuing students following details by the Office of the Auditor General exposing a scam in which the Education ministry wired Sh146.57 million in the last financial year to government-sponsored ghost students in private universities.
Embakasi West MP David Mwenje who was the sessional chair for the sitting queried why the funding agencies have failed to rollout a tracking system despite the glaring loss of funds through disbursement of funds to ghost students.
“This issue of tracking of the students still remains an issue and it has not been resolved. How are funding agencies tracking the students in the higher institutions without a tracking system,” he said.
“How are you helping the financial agencies as KUCCPS when you say you don’t have a tracking system. That’s why we are having discrepancies’ on where the funds are going,” Mwenje added.
Kiminini MP Kaikai Bissau castigated the lethargy of the education agencies in setting up the tracking system for continuing system given the magnitude of the pilferage witnessed due to lack of data.
“It’s unfortunate that in this day and age we don’t have a tracking system when it comes to placement and funding of the students. Looking into the magnitude of the data when it comes to funding,” Bissau remarked.
KUCCPS CEO told the house team legal loopholes have hindered establish of water-tight system to track students data in the university funding system saying the current mechanism is based on goodwill.
“The requirement is not in the law and so if we don’t have goodwill it will not happen. We don’t have a software but a will to manage data in a better way between the institutions. In the new model we have a tracking system from the placement stage to the funding stage,” Wahome averred.
University Fund Chief Executive Officer Godfrey Monari mentioned that the state institutions plans to create a digital system for information data management was hijacked by the Ministry of Information Communication Technology with the allocated funding of Sh 80 Million rewired to them
“We don’t have a software at the moment but we had pushed for its establishment and the National Assembly had granted us Sh 80Million to create Higher Education Management Information system but they money was later rewired to the Ministry of ICT for them to create it,” Monari stated.
The Auditor General reports have unearthed how the Education Ministry could be losing up billions annually allocated for ghost students as the ministry lacks a full-proof system to verify admission figures.
In the financial year 2021/2022, the Auditor General report disclosed that the government lost nearly Ksh1.2 billion through unsupported capital grant financing to private universities.
Private universities, whose identities were not released, received Ksh3.3 billion and only accounted for Ksh2.1 billion, raising questions on the balance.
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