Students who graduated with Engineering Degrees but failed to secure employment for over 9 years will be smiling all the way to the bank after the High Court awarded them Ksh15 million compensation.
A report by Business Daily on Wednesday, July 28, indicated that 75 students had sued Technical University of Kenya (TUK) over the quality of degrees.
They argued that the degrees they attained are not recognised by the Engineers Board of Kenya (EBK) rendering them unemployable.
The lot joined the then Kenya Polytechnic in 2009 which was still a constituent college of the University of Nairobi (UoN). The institution was later awarded the charter and rebranded to the Technical University of Kenya.
Since graduating in 2011, however, the lot is yet to secure any meaningful employment.
In his ruling, Justice James Makau sided with the students noting that the students should have been awarded degrees by UoN.
Makau, therefore, directed the institution to forward the names of the students to the University of Nairobi.
"I am therefore in agreement with the petitioners that they were students of the UoN and were entitled to be awarded degrees by the university in the absence of any legal provisions transferring the responsibility of awarding degree certificates to the TUK," ruled the judge.
The judge further noted that it was unfair for the students to hold unrecognised degrees yet they joined the institution under the University of Nairobi.
Makau further found the two institutions guilty of violating the students' expectations.
"In the circumstances, I find that the TUK and the UON violated the petitioner's legitimate expectation that the degree certificates to be awarded to them would be from the UoN and not any other University," added the judge.
Kenya has consistently suffered from huge unemployment rates year after year since the number of graduates churned out every year is higher than the available opportunities in the market.
