President Uhuru Kenyatta Thursday presided over the first graduation ceremony at Kibabii University where a total of 742 graduates were conferred degrees.
The President also announced an allocation of Sh300 million to improve the university’s teaching facilities.
President Kenyatta, who is also the Chancellor of the university, said he was pleased to join the first batch of students to graduate from the university he gave a charter in 2013.
“This is a great milestone for the university as well as the graduates. This university has achieved tremendous growth in the last five years,” said the President at the university’s graduation square where students, academic staff and parents gathered for the colourful ceremony.
The President urged universities to ensure they protect the integrity and quality of exams. “The era of missing examination marks or students proceeding to the next academic year before knowing how they performed is gone,” said the President.
He advised institutions of higher education to guard against becoming tribal enclaves or reducing themselves to mere sources of employment instead of the important role they have in society.
The President also warned universities against issuing degrees for money especially to politicians who want to beat the law.
He said any university found issuing degrees in unscrupulous manner will be dealt with harshly.
President Kenyatta also called on universities to use funds they raise from parallel programs to fund more research and community services.
He said Government will continue funding public universities but the institutions should also be innovative and must raise their budgetary allocation for libraries and research activities.
The President announced that the Government will allocate more funds to the university to support it to build more facilities.
“We will allocate Sh300 million to support the university complete all pending works to provide a proper teaching environment,” said the President.
He also called on the Bungoma County Government and local business people to partner with the university to build more hostels under private public partnership basis.
Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i said the university had made great progress since it was given a charter. “This university has started with the right steps and is going places,” said Mr Matiang’i.
The Vice Chancellor, Prof Isaac Odeo, said the university has achieved momentous growth and currently has 6500 students enrolled in four different faculties.
The Chairman of the University Council, Prof Shem Migot Adhola, said the university plans to boost its credentials by undertaking more researches starting with joint collaborations with national and international research organisations.
He said they also plan to set up a scholarship for women in science to attract more female students to enrol for science and technology courses especially at postgraduate level.
By PSCU.