The University of Nairobi has suspended ten common undergraduate courses from its list offered for sustainability.
‘‘The senate recently deliberated on this matter and approved a series of targeted interventions that are aimed at making the university more relevant, vibrant and sustainable,’’ said Prof. Stephen Kiama, the university’s vice chancellor. He further argued that strategic interventions centered on people are necessary if the institution is to achieve its goal.
The scrapped course include: Communication skills, Fundamentals of Development and Their Applications, Human Health, Law in Society, Environment Science, and Chemistry and its Applications.
Kiama stated that the university would only hire for essential departments and cut additional courses from the present 324 to place greater emphasis on engineering, medicine, and information technology.
According to a memo dated September 19, 2022 and sent internally by the University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor DVC Academic Affairs Professor Julius Okeng’o, the university stated that it came at the decision in order to ensure the institution’s continued viability.
‘‘By a copy of this memo, the Director of Information and Communication Technology, is required to withdraw them from the system all together,’’ read the statement.
Kiama pleaded for the government to back the university’s initiative and provide it the funding it needs to fulfill its civic mandate.
‘‘We suspended new appointments unless in critical areas, we rationalised programmes offering to focus on our flood ship programmes. In the process, we have in the three years collected 8.2 billion and are still counting,’’ This, Kiama said.
over 250 units were canceled in 2021. More courses will be trimmed from the current 324.
Amb. Simon Nabukwesi, the PS for University Education and Research, has asked universities to provide courses focused on current market demands. He said, ‘‘We want to support sustainability and we wish that the universities improve and be even profoundly globally competitive with the best of the universities.’’
