PhD IS NOT A REQUIREMENT FOR LECTURERS IN KENYA, SAYS LABOUR COURT
Lecturers in Kenya are a happy lot today after a labour court ruled in their favour.
According to the court’s ruling lecturers in Kenya must not have a doctorate to lecture in Kenyan universities.
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NULL AND VOID
Justice Stephen Radido while giving the court ruling declared the harmonized criteria and guidelines for appointment and promotion of University academic staff in Kenya null and void.
The nullified regulations require that anyone wishing to lecture in any Kenyan University must possess a PhD and publish scholarly articles.
In 2014, CUE had given universities a grace period of 5 years to implement these regulations.
By 2018, the majority of the lecturers were yet to enrol for doctorate degrees whereas those who had were either stuck at the proposal stage or lacked supervisors.
The proposal to prohibit lecturers without PhDs from lecturing in Kenyan universities was brought forward by the Commission for University Education, CUE.
Justice Stephen Radido who gave the ruling faulted CUE for ignoring public participation.
He further added that lecturers who are the primary stakeholders should have been given a chance to give their opinion regarding the matter before the Commission could come up with the regulation.
The case was filed by UASU-Universities Academic Staff Union against Machakos University and the Commission for University Education, CUE.
UASU argued that the regulations were secretly formulated although they would affect thousands of lecturers.
ASSISTANT LECTURERS
According to Titus Koceyo, UASU lawyer, the position of an assistant lecturer which had been done away with under the new regime is recognized in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, CBA hence it cannot be struck off before going back to the negotiation table.
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN KENYA ESSENTIAL STATISTICS
There are approximately 9, 320 university academic staff in private universities.
Statistics also show that there are 636 professors, 756 Associate Professors, 1, 451 senior lecturers, 3, 422 lecturers and 3, 055 assistant lecturers.
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