‘Parliament should not get more money than HELB’ – Senator Onyonka

Kisii Senator Richard Onyonka has questioned why Parliament should be getting a higher budgetary allocation compared to the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB).

Speaking during a local TV show on Tuesday, September 3, 2024, Onyonka wondered why Parliament, with fewer individuals, should continue to receive more government capitation while HELB, serving hundreds of thousands of students got less money.

“How can you give HELB Ksh21 billion and yet HELB is dealing with 200,000 university students and you give me in the National Assembly and the Senate Ksh36 billion shillings and we are only 700 people,” Onyonka quipped.

Onyonka on accountability

Onyonka faulted the new university funding model, stating that while the government was releasing funds to schools, the institutions could not account for the money spent.

During the discussion, Higher Education Principal Secretary Beatrice Inyangala defended the new funding model, saying that the complaints lodged by over 12,000 students would be resolved by next week.

She added that the new funding model was more advantageous to poorer households, stating that the older Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC) model treated everyone equally.

“It was based on the principle of equality, but everybody is not the same, so we wanted to meet everyone at their points of need,” Inyangala said.

Education budget

Out of the Ksh656 billion budget allocation for the education sector, the Treasury allocated Ksh35.9 billion towards higher education and TVETs in the 2024/25 financial year.

In comparison, parliament was allocated Ksh44.6 billion in the same period for the two houses of legislation.

According to the Commission of University Education (CUE), there are 79 registered universities in the country. Out of these, 35 are public chartered universities, six are public constituent colleges and 27 are private universities.

Research by CUE in 2018 revealed that there were 565,000 university students enrolled in various courses in both public and private institutions.

The report also indicated that during the 2017/18 period, 284,000 were enrolled as government-sponsored while 280,000 were self-sponsored.

Controversial funding model

The new funding model has raised queries after President William Ruto revoked the admission letters previously sent to parents and guardians that showed erroneous figures.

In his remarks, Ruto said the letters indicated the total cost of the courses instead of showing the actual amount each household was expected to pay.

The new model has classified learners into five bands, with band 1 being the most needy while band 5 is categorised as the least needy.