The University of Nairobi is finally clawing its way into the digital future with strategic changes that saw it abolish all its colleges.
Speaking during the celebrations of the the institution's 50 years of existence on Friday, July 9, The Chair of Council, Prof. Julia Ojiambo explained that the new changes were aimed at reducing the bureaucracy at the institution.
She explained that the UoN would compress all its activities to be accommodated within just 11 faculties.
Ojiambo further noted that the university, ranked as the best institution of higher education, is instituting the changes in an attempt respond to the changing operating environment as well as eliminate duplication of functions and redundancies.
It is also seeking to improve efficiency in service delivery by aligning resources to functions and manage costs of service delivery as well as enhance accountability and utilize excess capacity at the University to generate more resources.
"In our view, the resultant governance and structural reforms envision a new thinking; a thinking that breaks down bureaucracy for the benefit of our stakeholders.
"This is achieved by abolishing unnecessary layers of reporting and in so doing, eliminating “forwarding offices” and in their stead, replacing them with re-imagined functional offices that lend themselves to conclusion of tasks and resolution of queries at the lowest functional unit," stated Ojiambo.
She also announced that it had abolished offices, merged functions and created new functional positions aligned to the core mandate of UoN. Some of the abolished positions are five Offices of DVCs replaced by two positions of Associate Vice-chancellors.
The institution also eliminated all positions of Principals and Deputy Principals and their roles reorganized under new positions of Executive and Associate Deans to align resources to the faculties where teaching and learning take place.
For the past six years, UoN has managed five colleges with over 20 faculties spread out in major cities and towns countrywide.
The colleges included those of of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, Architecture and Engineering, Biological and Physical Sciences, Education and External Studies, Health Sciences, and Humanities and Social Sciences.
The institution boasts of an 80,000 student body and a148,000 alumni network comprising of politicians, cabinet secretaries and entertainers.
They new changes took effect beginning July 1, 2021.
"Our quest for reform at the University of Nairobi - benchmarked against global best practice - is informed by the unfolding realities of the 21st century and the need to align our priorities with the demands of changing times.
"The new structure is informed by the centrality of Teaching, Research and Innovations themselves functions at the core of our mandate," noted Ojiambo.
