The Public Universities Inspection Board (PUIB) was appointed by His Excellency the President on April 19, 2005. The appointment of the Board provided Kenyans with a unique window of opportunity to reflect on the current status of higher education and how it should be transformed into a sector that enables them to realize individual and national goals of social, economic, and political development in a highly competitive and rapidly changing global environment. The Board received many presentations and held discussions on critical issues that need immediate attention and others that require systematic planning in order to transform higher education into a major player in the emerging knowledge economy.
The terms of reference of the Board made it abundantly clear that the spirit and basic thrust of the Board’s work was not so much to ‘’inspect’’ in order to find fault and criticize, but to review, provide responsible critique and constructive engagement with stakeholders and thereafter recommend appropriate changes.
To implement its terms of reference the Board built a partnership with key stakeholders to enable it to learn and appreciate the challenges and possibilities of transformation of higher education in the country. The partnership was also intended to cultivate a sense of ownership of the report of the Board. The report has thus focused on seven broad areas of the terms of reference: increasing access and equity; quality assurance; student welfare and discipline; teaching and non-teaching staff welfare and discipline; meeting demand for knowledge, relevant skills and competencies; resource mobilization and financing; governance and management of higher education. An implementation matrix is also provided in the report.
The report has called for a radical rethinking on how the increasing demand for access and equity in higher education can be met; the way students are initiated and socialized into university community life; the way the quality of learning and research is processed, ensured and maintained; the way staff are recruited, utilized and rewarded; how funding of the sector is organized, managed and accountability secured; and finally the governance and management of public universities. The implementation of the proposed changes in the report entail a paradigm shift.