President Ruto meet university leaders at a city hall meeting.

• President William Ruto meet with various student leaders and other stake holders at a city hall meeting. 
• The President invited students leaders on the 25th August at KICC to discuss what he termed as the most critical issues ailing education sector.
• The president started the welcomed his guests by giving a brief history of what education has been in the republic
• Ruto said that education is the greatest equaliser and therefore must be handled with a lot of care and concerns. 

While stressing on importance of quality education, Ruto said destroying a nation in the twenty first century doesn’t need atomic bombs or missile but rather, lowering the quality of education.”..And you all know, because you have called us, there is a common saying that to destroy a nation you don’t have to use an atomic bomb or to use long range missile. all you need to do is to lower the quality of education, and if there is exam cheating, you will have destroyed a nation.” Ruto said.

President Ruto disclosed that while he came to office in 2022, he appointed a task force comprised of Education professions to address the issues that were ailing the sector at the time amongst them, the implementation of the competence based curriculum model (CBC) which had brought discussions at the time. The task force came with recommendations, some of which the president says have already been implemented while others are on the implementations phase, including hiring fifty six thousand junior secondary school teachers, an statement that Kenyans have refuted.

Ruto is faced with a number of challenges in the education sector amongst them teachers salaries, delayed payments, university funding, Junior school teachers employment among other things. Ruto invited the students leaders to specifically discuss about the new university funding model which is facing backlash from the university scholars. Ruto gave a brief history of university funding models since the year 1996 and the changes that has occurred since then.

Ruto said it is time to have conversations about the funding system and the whole education mechanism. “This is one hell of a conversation we must have. we cannot afford to continue having an education system that shuts out millions of the children of the poor” The President said.

After an intensive explanation on his implementation mode of the new university funding model, the head of state welcomed questions and answer session from the university learners whom the model affect them much.

One JKUAT student leader took the show after asking the president about corruption. “Mr. President, why the rush? Why the rush in implementing a model that has a lot of technicalities?” JKUAT Student leader paused. “We also know that corruption is the biggest public expenditure and before you came into office, you had people with corruption scandals but they became pants all over sudden, what is your administration doing to ensure corruption ends in public institutions? The Varsity scholar asked.

From the hall meeting it was clear that the leaners aren’t satisfied with the model and the President need to come up with more candid solutions on the issues ailing the universities.