30,000 Students have been Deregistered from the university of Nairobi’s system. This was done when the enrolment ckean-up was done targeting those who are termed as inactive students and those who have overstayed in the institution.
The deregistered number of students who translates to more than 37 per cent of the total number of students in the institution are those who deferred and those who are on suspension.
Due to the increase in tuition fees and reduction of HELB loans from the treasury, many students have been forced to deffer their studies since they are not able to raise fees in the expected time.
A number of students come from poor backgrounds hence, they depend fully on the HELB loans for their tuition fees and also for domestic use.
Students who have enrolled for masters degrees are supposed to take two years to complete their studies. But most of them are civil servants who study during part time, a number of them have been unable to complete their studies in the expected time due to commitment in their places of work.
The students have been given twice the number of years a programme takes. For instance, if a course takes four years, students have been given up to eight years to complete their studies while those who Ho for a two year course are given up to four years to graduate.
In Prof. Kiama’s statement, the number of students reduced from 80,000 to 50,000 but he later added that, those who have been deregistered have been given room for re-admission.
Research states that the inactive students mostly from the postgraduate section, have reduced due to lack of employment opportunities that was mostly affected by the economy.
The student deregistration exercise was engineered by the government in that it had decided to withold funds for students who are stayed to have overstayed in public universities amid funding constraints.
