{"id":6147,"date":"2019-10-25T09:17:02","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T06:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6147"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:38","slug":"the-power-of-the-purse-threatens-academic-freedom-in-kenyas-universities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/10\/25\/the-power-of-the-purse-threatens-academic-freedom-in-kenyas-universities\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power Of The Purse Threatens Academic Freedom In Kenya\u2019s Universities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By<\/strong> <strong>Ishmael\nMunene<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Academic freedom is the right enjoyed by university teachers\nto teach, research and write in their areas of expertise without fear of\nretribution by institutional powers or political authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In universities, academic freedom is desirable because their\nwork is to search for truth, transmit knowledge and, often, speak truth to\npower. Constraints on this freedom threaten the very essence of the\nuniversity\u2019s purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fundamental to academic freedom is autonomy: the ability of\nuniversities to make internal decisions independent of state control, or\ncontrol by any outside agent. Generally, this means that academic freedom\ncannot be divorced from its financial base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cue.or.ke\/images\/phocadownload\/Accredited_Universities_in_Kenya_November_2017.pdf\">There\nare<\/a>&nbsp;37 state universities in Kenya and 23 private ones. The state\nsubsidy to public universities has fallen&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.universityworldnews.com\/post.php?story=20181129132142395\">dramatically<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For about 20 years, since the state cut its budgets, Kenya\u2019s\nuniversities have been&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/full\/10.1177\/2158244015612519\">shaped by<\/a>&nbsp;a\ndrive for profit to cover operating costs. In 2011 private revenue \u2013 from\nstreams like tuition fees, programme fees and contract research \u2013&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessdailyafrica.com\/corporate\/Public-universities-revenues-hit-record-level\/539550-1190922-nvump5\/index.html\">actually\nexceeded<\/a>&nbsp;state subsidies in Kenya\u2019s top five public universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/the-power-of-the-purse-threatens-academic-freedom-in-kenyas-universities-125178\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ishmael Munene Academic freedom is the right enjoyed by university teachers to teach, research and write in their areas of expertise without fear of retribution by institutional powers or&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}