The Politics

This study analyzes the transformation of Kenya's public universities through marketization and privatization by focusing on one university in transition. It identifies the strategies used to achieve marketization and privatization, and the attendant anxiety generated. Both external and internal factors catalyzed the transformation. Marketization strategies included the corporatization of university management through the de-politicization of the university chancellorship, competitive recruitment of the vice-chancellor, administrative reconfigurations, registration of unions and revitalization of student leadership. These developments have generated role conflicts, insider recruitment, and administrative misalignment, loss of faculty power in governance, collective bargaining failure and disruption of learning. Privatization was attained through the commercialization of learning, reflected in the admission of privately sponsored students and the privatization of students' accommodation and boarding services. Consequently, conflict over revenue sharing, excessive workload, threat to academic quality and students engaging in risky behavior as a coping strategy were the outcomes.