The Politics

Ishmael I. Munene teaches at Northern Arizona University. His
research interest focuses on African higher education His
research interest focuses on African higher education with
emphasis on privatization, impact of globalization, governance,
and gender issues. He has published widely in books and
journals, both in Africa and abroad.

This study analyzes the transformation of Kenya's
public universities through marketization and
privatization by focusing on one university in
transition. It identifies the strategies used to
achieve marketization and privatization, and the
attendant anxiety generated. Both external and
internal factors catalyzed the transformation.
Marketization strategies included the corporatization
of university management through the
de-politicization of the university chancellorship,
competitive recruitment of the vice-chancellor,
administrative reconfigurations, registration of
unions and revitalization of student leadership.
These developments have generated role conflicts,
insider recruitment, and administrative misalignment,
loss of faculty power in governance, collective
bargaining failure and disruption of learning.
Privatization was attained through the
commercialization of learning, reflected in the
admission of privately sponsored students and the
privatization of students accommodation and boarding
services. Consequently, conflict over revenue
sharing, excessive workload, threat to academic
quality and students engaging in risky behavior as a
coping strategy were the outcomes.