What Are Challenges Facing Colleges in Kenya

Education is the center of development because it empowers individuals in the country and the world. Education is vital to the country’s development; hence investing in it benefits individuals, the country, and the world. Good quality education that is broad-based is one of the effective tools to reduce inequality and poverty.
Quality education is defined as good academic training based on sound knowledge transfer, a good learning environment, and a good relationship between teaching and research. In the provision of quality education, colleges in Kenya have experienced so many challenges that we will discuss in this article.
 

• Limited resources
  In Kenya, the demand for education is higher than the available resources. Kenyan colleges are struggling to meet this demand. In most colleges, the country’s lack of qualified lecturers to teach various courses affects them significantly. Some lecturers have to teach triple the number of students contracted for. This problem typically applies to public universities where you will get approximately six hundred students in one lecture hall, which lowers the quality of education that these students receive. 
• Online learning
  Due to covid 19, Kenyan colleges have introduced blended learning, where they do both online and physical education to ensure that students finish their studies on time. However, preparedness for online classes varies from institution to institution. Part of the problem comes from the lack of investment in online resources by most of the institutions. Furthermore, most lecturers are not trained in using online learning, which surprised them. The apparent setback is the digital divide. Most families in Kenya don’t even have internet in their homes, so students cannot do e-learning. Some students don’t have laptops to start. 
• Lack of quality learning
  Learning in colleges in Kenya has turned out to be just passing exams instead of acquiring the required skills at the workplace. Most students read when exams are near, and some even write ‘mwakenya,’ and the whole course is forgotten when exams are done. 
• Lack of curriculum standardization 
  Students taking the same course in two different colleges are taught different content. This challenge causes problems during job applications because these two students will apply for the same job. In addition to this, there is no standardization of assessment which leads to differences in grading and poor quality graduates. 
   

Conclusion

These challenges are issues our government and every Kenyan citizen should invest in because the future of our country is at stake. Together with the private sector, our government should address these challenges for our next generation to be competent and thrive and compete globally. I hope these few points will help the government to realize that our education system is failing and take action by laying better policies for our education system.