By Clifford Akumu
For a long time it was costly for Kenyan students eyeing international qualifications to realize their dreams thanks to tight immigration rules, high tuition fees and accommodation expenses.
UK-based University of Northampton has partnered with Kenya’s Edulink International College to bridge the gap by offering three-year undergraduate courses locally from next month at 1.2 million ksh, which is equivalent to 400, 000 ksh per year.
Students from Kenya studying in UK would spend about seven million ksh for the same course .This makes the courses offered in Kenya’s capital by Northampton about three million ksh cheaper, excluding expenses in accommodation and upkeep.
The partnership whose aim is to create linkage between students and industry will cultivate an entrepreneurial culture among graduates to chat their economic path.
“We want to bring quality education at affordable rates with specific tailored needs of the industry” said Rachel Butterfield, head of business and foundation studies at Edulink International College.
Available data suggests that about 49% of Kenya’s graduates are unemployed; a situation the institution will counter through its ambitious industry linkage model.
Kenya’s education sector has for a long time been plagued by a myriad of challenges, including production of students who lack the technical skills required in the job market.
Edulink has a pool of industry partners and experienced lecturers who have practiced abroad approved by the university to mentor students on idea development.
“The institution is not only here to help students in academics, but also link them with industry players from day one” said the head of business studies
Ms Butterfield said that the linkage will be achieved through ‘seminar sessions’ with industry players-in which the curricula will be localized.
During the sessions, she continues, students will have time to present business plans to industry investors for consideration.
“Keeping with UK-standards each seminar session will have about 20-25 students, while a lecture is about 100 students to enhance concentration and group discussions. We will partner with industry players in banking, food and telecom sector to achieve this” said Butterfield.
Riding on the survey conducted in 2015 which showed that courses offered by Northampton University achieved 96% employability in UK, Kenya’s case would not be short of that, explained Butterfield.
“We want to churn out job creators and innovators to spur growth in Kenya’s economy .” said Butterfield.
According to data from the British High Commission in Nairobi, the number of Kenyan students enrolling in UK universities stood at 1,125 in 2012.
Of late Nairobi has experience an influx of international universities and companies as a launching pad to eat on the Africa’s rich market.
Last October, top US institutions Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business pitched camp in Nairobi to recruit students for their MBA programmes.
“Most industries are setting base in Kenya from oil, hotels, banks hence the need to create competitive graduates to cater for their human resource pool and we want to part of that positive story” added Butterfield.
Through the university’s international foundation program, the institution will offer bridging courses for learners who do not meet some of the requirements for undergraduate courses.
Learners will also be based at incubation centres to develop business ideas as a channel to entrepreneurship.
“We are open for talks with incubation centres in Nairobi to accommodate some of our innovative students’ ideas once we start operation next month” added Sudhir Gupta, head of operations.
The Dubai-based Edulink picked Nairobi as its African headquarters and spent 300 million ksh in setting up its learning facilities. The college on Ngong Road has a capacity of 1,500 students.
