Yesterday, in 3rd Eye’s opinion segment, we asked your opinions about the double intake and its successes so far especially in main Campus. One thing stood out. Most of the students felt the program was a total fail. However, a few felt it was a good initiative by the government that succeeded in some universities but failed in Moi because of management/planning challenges.
That said, I wish to delve deep into this subtle issue. Double intake program was a brainchild of the then minister of higher learning, William Ruto, now a Deputy President. This program, referred to as ‘accelerated intake’ was introduced first, to shorten the duration four leavers have to spend before joining universities. Second, the program was introduced as a measure of coping with the increased number of students JAB has to admit in public universities. \
This was attributed to free primary learning and ‘free’ secondary Education that has seen a shoot up in numbers of students scoring quality grades in KCSE. Some of the universities rejected the implementation of the program citing inadequate resources, disruption of the academic calendars among other factors of concern. University of Nairobi is one of these institutions. Other public universities like Kenyatta, Moi, Egerton, MasindeMuliro, Chepkoilel (UOE) went ahead with the program, as per the government directive.
Now back to Moi, Main Campus. The program kicked off in April 2012. It was at this time, the freshly Elected members of the SGC,Doghana and Dikembe called for a Kamukunji to reject the implementation of the program in main Campus. However, their call was met with a lot of hostility and opposition. No student turned up for the Kamukunji. And that was the end of the story.
A year later, unprecedented challenges have emerged. ‘FurtherNotice’ has become an in house term. In its first stages, fourth years in session were the first victims. They stayed home for almost a year. And now, the series continues. Other groups continue to follow suit. In lecture halls, there is hardly space to sit especially when common courses are involved. The resources are overstretched to the limit. The initial semester that used to run for 16 weeks has been reduced to a meager 12 weeks. The lecturers have to rush through the courses just to keep up with the short time available.
And the program gave birth to a monster, which seems to run out of hand. The accommodation problem. While the number of first year admitted in main campus has doubled up in year 2011 and 2012, no single structure/building has been put up so far to house the additional population. And this has posed a major crisis. Not surprising, for the first time in many years, a section of the 1st years had to be sent home after just a semester, for a specified period of time to pave way for the group that reported on 15th April.
The big problem will be on august. How will the university cope up with the section of first years(BBM,Arts) who supposedly are assumed to be reporting back, the large group of second years too and all the current Fourth years out of session? And not forgetting, the university will have to admit a new large group of first years (KCSE 2012) anytime from August to November this year? Which group(s), currently in session, will have to break for a holiday?
These are some of the issues we the students should ponder about extensively as the million dollar question remains;should the Double intake program continue, halted, adjusted or even stopped altogether in main campus?
That said, I wish to delve deep into this subtle issue. Double intake program was a brainchild of the then minister of higher learning, William Ruto, now a Deputy President. This program, referred to as ‘accelerated intake’ was introduced first, to shorten the duration four leavers have to spend before joining universities. Second, the program was introduced as a measure of coping with the increased number of students JAB has to admit in public universities. \
This was attributed to free primary learning and ‘free’ secondary Education that has seen a shoot up in numbers of students scoring quality grades in KCSE. Some of the universities rejected the implementation of the program citing inadequate resources, disruption of the academic calendars among other factors of concern. University of Nairobi is one of these institutions. Other public universities like Kenyatta, Moi, Egerton, MasindeMuliro, Chepkoilel (UOE) went ahead with the program, as per the government directive.
Now back to Moi, Main Campus. The program kicked off in April 2012. It was at this time, the freshly Elected members of the SGC,Doghana and Dikembe called for a Kamukunji to reject the implementation of the program in main Campus. However, their call was met with a lot of hostility and opposition. No student turned up for the Kamukunji. And that was the end of the story.
A year later, unprecedented challenges have emerged. ‘FurtherNotice’ has become an in house term. In its first stages, fourth years in session were the first victims. They stayed home for almost a year. And now, the series continues. Other groups continue to follow suit. In lecture halls, there is hardly space to sit especially when common courses are involved. The resources are overstretched to the limit. The initial semester that used to run for 16 weeks has been reduced to a meager 12 weeks. The lecturers have to rush through the courses just to keep up with the short time available.
And the program gave birth to a monster, which seems to run out of hand. The accommodation problem. While the number of first year admitted in main campus has doubled up in year 2011 and 2012, no single structure/building has been put up so far to house the additional population. And this has posed a major crisis. Not surprising, for the first time in many years, a section of the 1st years had to be sent home after just a semester, for a specified period of time to pave way for the group that reported on 15th April.
The big problem will be on august. How will the university cope up with the section of first years(BBM,Arts) who supposedly are assumed to be reporting back, the large group of second years too and all the current Fourth years out of session? And not forgetting, the university will have to admit a new large group of first years (KCSE 2012) anytime from August to November this year? Which group(s), currently in session, will have to break for a holiday?
These are some of the issues we the students should ponder about extensively as the million dollar question remains;should the Double intake program continue, halted, adjusted or even stopped altogether in main campus?
No comments:
Post a Comment
your comment, your voice...