More than 500 employees at Egerton University are on edge after the institution’s administration issued a notice of redundancy next week.
The university has arranged a meeting on Tuesday where the Vice Chancellor will reveal the details of the redundancies, according to a circular.
The announcement comes as Vice Chancellors, Ministry of Education officials, and funding boards gathered in Mombasa for the first Biennial Universities Financing Conference, where they submitted a slew of recommendations to help public institutions struggling with debt and other issues.
Egerton University has been financially crippled for the previous three years, owing more than Ksh.8 billion shillings.
Among of the 30 public universities, Egerton is one of the hardest hit, as it pays only 57% of its instructors’ wages, prompting the faculty to go on strike several times in an attempt to demand full compensation.
This is merely the top of the iceberg, as the institution has now contacted all personnel of the university, via a notice given on February 23, 2023, to attend a Vice Chancellor’s address on Tuesday February 28; the agenda being to declare staff redundancies.
The Egerton chapter of the Universities Academic Union Staff Association (UASU) has condemned the notification as misguided.
This development comes as Egerton University Vice Chancellor Prof. Issac Kibwage joined other VCs at the first Universities Funding Conference in Mombasa to find ways to get universities out of the financial quagmire that has pushed them into pending bills totalling Ksh.60.8 billion as of February this year.
The summit produced a slew of resolutions that might see the varsities reclaim their former splendor.
This involves, among other things, paying off the pending Pay As You Earn bill of Ksh.18 billion payable to KRA and clearing the pending pension bill of Ksh.19.6 billion in scheduled payments.
