Kenyan universities are heading for a crisis as they look increasingly unlikely to hit a target for all lecturers to have a doctorate by this autumn.

A report from the country¡¯s Commission for University Education says that, according to latest data, just 32?per cent of academic staff possess a?PhD. A 2014 directive issued by the commission, the government¡¯s higher education regulator, said that lecturers without a PhD by its deadline ¨C originally November 2018, now pushed back to October 2019 ¨C would not be able to continue in their jobs.

The commission¡¯s paper, which is based on data for 2016-17, says that the majority of lecturers ¨C 53?per cent ¨C have master¡¯s degrees.

Kenya¡¯s Universities Academic Staff Union has claimed that the directive ¡°breached the constitution¡± because its members had not been properly consulted.

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Tristan McCowan, professor of international education at UCL, said it would be impossible for Kenyan universities to achieve the target by October. Building PhD capacity took decades ¨C not years, and certainly not months, he said.

The commission ¡°does have the best intentions¡± with the initiative, Professor McCowan acknowledged, as ¡°it is very important for Kenyan higher education to enhance its doctoral education¡±. There is currently a bottleneck caused by rising numbers of undergraduates at Kenyan universities and a need to develop more high-quality staff.

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Kenya also needed to boost its research efforts, Professor McCowan added. Many countries were interested in collaborations, but Kenya lacked the research capacity to embark on them. ¡°[Increasing the number of PhDs] is a good idea, but it¡¯s extremely difficult to implement,¡± he said. ¡°If you don¡¯t have enough well-established academics with PhDs, how do you supervise new ones? And I don¡¯t see how they will be able to lay off two-thirds of the workforce.¡±

Professor McCowan pointed out that countries such as Brazil had significantly improved their PhD capacity but that this effort had begun in the 1960s. ¡°It also requires extra funding,¡± he said.

What¡¯s more, Professor McCowan added, such a drive, however well-intentioned, could lead to a ¡°panic for a PhD¡± that could damage higher education. ¡°If it is badly managed, you might get a diploma mill, with academics churning through PhDs without the full experience, which is not in anybody¡¯s interest,¡± he said.

anna.mckie@timeshighereducation.com