President William Ruto sparked a debate after he revealed plans to scrap the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) and establish a National Skills and Funding Council to connect the two levels in order to provide a credit transfer framework to support academic progression.
Ruto was speaking in Mombasa on Sunday, January 1 when he announced that the National Education Fund will mobilise grants, bursaries, and scholarships from private and public sponsors to cover non-tuition costs.
“To bridge the current higher education funding gap of up to 45 per cent, the government will establish the National Skills and Funding Council that amalgamates HELB, TVET, and University Funding Board,” he stated.
But what would it take for the president's proposition to do away with the funding to materialize?
Kenyans.co.ke sought clarification from lawyer Charles Kanjama on the same.
Kanjama intimated that the president cannot proclaim to change the fund other than through proposals to parliament.
“The most the president can do is to propose and recommend HELB to be amended by a different statute,
“He can achieve this through the office of the Attorney General, where the AG can draft a bill to repeal the HELB Act to replace it with the president's funding bill.
“This will only require a simple majority in parliament to be passed and made into law,” he added.
Ruto’s decision was based on the report compiled by the task force set to review the Competency Based Curriculum, led by Prof Raphael Munavu.
HELB was established by an Act of Parliament CAP 213A of the Laws of Kenya in 1995 to finance Kenyan students pursuing higher education.
The philosophy behind this was to create a revolving fund from which future generations could borrow in pursuit of higher education.
Equally, the president revealed the government's plan to spend Ksh15 billion to equip 70 Technical Training and Vocational Educational Training Institution (TVET) institutions to assist in the training of learners and prepare them for the labour market.
In its Education Charter, the Kenya Kwanza Alliance pledged to complete the construction of Vocational Training Centres in each ward, as well as to ensure every constituency has a (TVET) institution.
