Why hiring and firing of vice-chancellors is often contentious

In recent years, many Kenyan universities have become theatres of a strange and recurring drama around hiring and firing of vice-chancellors. These are captains of academia meant to steer the institutions through the turbulent waters of knowledge, politics, and reform. It is a play that begins with fanfare and ends in dissonance, often starring the University Council, the Public Service Commission, and the Cabinet Secretary for Education. All these actors are locked in a perplexing tug-of-war over who holds the pen that writes the fate of vice-chancellors.

From Nairobi to Eldoret, Egerton to Kisii, corridors have whispered of suspensions, court orders, reinstatements, and hurried replacements, as if the governance of universities were a stage for power and not scholarship. The heart of this confusion lies in two legal provisions that dance awkwardly within the same law, the Universities Act of 2012. Section 35(1)(a)(v) declares that in the case of public universities, the Council shall appoint vice-chancellors and their deputies, but only after a competitive process conducted by the Public Service Commission (PSC), and in consultation with the Cabinet Secretary. Section 39, on the other hand, strikes a different tune, stating that the Cabinet Secretary shall appoint the vice-chancellor on the recommendation of the Council, following a competitive recruitment conducted by that same Council. Two processes, two gatekeepers, two visions of authority. And therein lies the storm.