Vice Chancellors (VCs) held a meeting on Friday 21 st February with Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha and approved a proposal that will make it easier for the government to merge universities.

This comes amid false starts since the Cabinet Secretary announced the plans more than a year ago. The new strategy intends to make it easy for the government to undertake mergers or acquisitions of both private and public universities.

The new proposals envisages a scenario where a sponsor of a university who intends to cause a merger of a university, will request the Commission for University Education (CUE) for consideration, while for the case of public universities, the Government through the Ministry of Education shall make the application.

Private universities’ merger will be handled by the institutions’ board of trustees who upon receipt of the application, CUE will set up a committee that will handle investigations, audit and final drafting of a report on whether to okay or throw away the request. The final decision will then be made by the Commission of University Education.

CUE shall scrutinize students and staff welfare, assets, and liabilities of the institutions during the process.