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Logistics in Kenya’s Academic System

By Johan Woxenius

February 2012

Spending seven months in Kenya last year clearly left me with lasting impressions. My first

article about my stay (see the September issue of Northern Lead newsletter) was largely writ-

ten in future tense; this article presents what happened with my plans. With a focus on Ken-

yan academics, collaboration between Gothenburg, Nairobi, and Mombasa, and my time as a

visiting professor at the University of Nairobi, please enjoy a glimpse of a very fruitful stay in

a quite different academic environment!

The Kenyan academic sector

Seven of the 30 universities in Kenya are public and the remaining 23 are private, of which 14 are

fully accredited by the Commission for Higher Education. The public universities have 15 constituent

colleges that sort under the main universities in academic matters. The number of Kenyan universities

and colleges are thus comparable to that of Sweden. In 2011 the public universities enrolled some

151 000 students, the polytechnics 11 000, and the private some 31 000. This figure is about half of

Sweden’s 360 000 enrolled in higher education. Four times more people live in Kenya than in Sweden.

The Kenyans with the best high school grades enjoy free university education, whereas those with

money can enrol as self-sponsored students. There is a clear quality gap between the student groups.

The teachers I spoke to obviously preferred teaching the government-sponsored students but were paid

extra to teach the self-sponsored.

Kenyatta University, outside of Nairobi, is the largest, whereas the University of Nairobi (UoNbi) is

the oldest and generally seen as the most prestigious. Employers, however, are sometimes reluctant to

hire graduates from UoNbi due to the university’s student activist reputation. When I was at UoNbi,

for instance, the student union leader was slashed by a machete-man and lost some fingers, and his

student's room was burned down. Moi University in Eldoret, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture

and Technology (JKUAT) north of Nairobi, and Maseno University in Kisumu at Lake Victoria are

also well-known institutions. Nairobi and Maseno are cities, whereas Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap

Moi were the first two Kenyan presidents. Visiting Kenya, you get used to having half of everything

being named Kenyatta and the other half Moi; and if they are not named after the presidents, you often

find that they are owned by someone named Kenyatta or Moi. The third and still sitting president,

Kibaki, has not followed the tradition of labelling the Kenyan society with his name.

A carpenter’s workshop at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

Notably, Kenya’s second largest city, Mombasa, lacks a university, although Mombasa Polytechnic

University College (MPUC) is expected to get university status in 2012 and then cease to be sorted

under JKUAT.

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A workshop at Mombasa Polytechnic University College.

Mombasa is also subject to the interesting phenomenon of the main universities competing for stu-

dents all over Kenya. UoNbi, for instance, educates at campuses distributed across Nairobi, but also in

campuses in Mombasa and Kisumu and in ten “extra mural centres” all over Kenya. I was surprised to

find that UoNbi had bought what appeared to be the largest building on Mombasa’s high street. Dur-

ing my visit they were busy throwing out tenants and remodelling the building with lecture halls and

canteens. The School of Business (SoB) already had a thousand students there and the School of Law

and other parts of the university had another thousand students. Many of the courses given in Nairobi

were also offered in Mombasa, and the teaching staff travelled between the cities.

External and internal view of the University of Nairobi’s campus in Mombasa.

The same goes for the other main universities in creating a true market for higher education, with uni-

versities competing for self-sponsored students on highly commercial grounds on campuses in virtual-

ly all Kenyan cities. Imagine the University of Gothenburg admitting students to campuses in Stock-

holm, Lund, and Uppsala and at extra mural centres in Örkelljunga, Finspång, and Sollefteå!

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Linking Swedish and Kenyan universities

Cooperation between universities is either initiated from the universities’ top management finding

strategic reasons for cooperation or through a bottom-up process with individual researchers working

together. Both ways have their benefits and shortcomings, but they both rely on actions taken on at an

operational level to fill the cooperation with content. A university level agreement makes life a bit

easier and opens up for student exchanges and certain funding; it also provides a bit more stable coop-

eration than the bilateral initiatives by individuals.

During my stay in Kenya I found many research links between GU and UoNbi, and I tried to contrib-

ute to an agreement at the university level since personal presence is a success factor, if not a require-

ment. I think we will get there, but the central process was not very fast, so GU’s Faculty of Natural

Science worked out an agreement at the faculty level. I met Johan Boman, a professor in GU’s De-

partment of Chemistry and part of the Sustainable Transport Initiative, who measured traffic emissions

in Kenya and taught at UoNbi. The talks lead to an attempt to do the same between GU’s Schools of

Business, Economics and Law and its counterparts at UoNbi. Nevertheless, the agreement at the facul-

ty level also failed during my stay; however, Gunnar Köhlin, at the Department of Economics with

their centre of Environment for Development (see my last article), Lena Gipperth, of the Department

of Law, and I are still optimistic and think we will get an agreement soon. We are planning for a semi-

nar at Handels by the end of March when we get visitors from UoNbi.

Entrance to the University of Nairobi’s main campus.

Note the sign to the right saying “University of Nairobi is a corruption free zone”.

Commissioned by Northern Lead’s “sister competence centre” Lighthouse in the maritime field, I also

investigated whether or not we could link our research and education to Kenya. The Kenyan maritime

education sector is clearly in its infancy, and I found few traces of research. On a rather operational or

even practical level, the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) educates its own staff at their Bandari College

in Mombasa and SoB of UoNbi gives some courses for KPA’s mid- and upper-management. Bandari

College has asked SoB to develop a course in maritime logistics and I hope to be part of the effort.

View over the Port of Mombasa from the port’s Bandari College.

Training and licensing seafarers is subject to international rules set by the IMO and are sorted under

the Kenya Maritime Administration (KMA), rather than under the Ministry of Higher Education, Sci-

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ence, and Technology. KMA’s Director General, Nancy Karigithu, has initiated new navigation and

ship engineer programmes at JKUAT and MPUC, and she was an extremely helpful door-opener. Fol-

lowing the meeting with Mrs. Karigithu, I visited both institutions and discussed ways to move for-

ward with the principals and heads of departments.

Me, Johan Woxenius, outside the Nautical Block at Mombasa Polytechnic University College.

It was a hot and humid day…

Shipping and Marine Technology at Chalmers will deepen the collaboration with JKUAT and MPUC

in the fields of navigation and ship engineers, and I will continue my efforts with SoB regarding mari-

time transport management and logistics.

Department of Applied Science hosting the nautical education at Mombasa Polytechnic University College. The

Swahili architecture reflects Mombasa’s mixed history of Arab, Portuguese, Indian, and British merchants.

A tour around JKUAT’s laboratories revealed that they had been given large parts of their machinery

and teaching equipment from Japanese donors. It was not exactly high-tech, but it seemed adequate for

the teaching offered at JKUAT. They also had a large Wärtsilä engine, originally used for electric

power generation but now used for training ship engineers in the courtyard.

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A ship’s engine used for educational purposes at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

Logistics in the Kenyan academic system

Freight transport and logistics are not very visible in Kenyan university curricula. The Kenyan society

seems to prioritise education in agriculture, business, and civil engineering. One example is that I con-

tinuously searched for conferences on transport, logistics, and supply chain management and thus

missed the apparently most relevant conference, which was titled “infrastructure”.

Besides the courses at Bandari College, SoB also offers logistics and supply chain management cours-

es in its Bachelor of Commerce and MBA programmes, both with specialisations on Procurement and

Supply Chain Management, Operations Management, and Business Information Systems. At the con-

ferences I attended I found some papers addressing logistics and transport and I met a few East Afri-

can researchers active in the field.

There is a true interest in strengthening logistics education, and I have promised to assist in developing

an MSc programme on logistics. It will be given at the main campus in Nairobi, but an intended spe-

cialisation on maritime logistics will be developed in Mombasa. I hope colleagues within Northern

Lead will be interested in joining my efforts and gain experience from teaching in Kenya!

Personal experiences

My article in September was full of things “still to do” in Kenya. Many of them actually materialised,

such as being part of a panel at the National Energy Conference and helping Ola Alterå, former Swe-

dish secretary of state for energy and now country manager for UNIDO, into the programme. An in-

teresting experience was getting a separate programme detailing to the minute President Kibaki’s visit

and official opening of the conference, just to discover that he gave his speech three hours late. Prime

Minister Raila Odinga’s closing speech was just 2.5 hours after the set time, indicating that he was not

as important as the president.

Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki, giving a speech at the Energy Conference.

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While listening to their speeches, I could not help thinking of the close to one thousand killed and the

600 000 who had to leave their homes after their disagreement of how the votes were counted during

the last elections, which is now facing its aftermath in the Hague.There is apparently more interest in

large-scale energy generation projects than in small-scale practical solutions for the countryside

among ministers and parastatal bosses. I just could not help suspecting that it is related to the corrup-

tion that pervades Kenyan society.

I spent most of the autumn as a visiting professor at UoNbi. Trying to follow the instructions on how

to formally become a visiting professor, I experienced a truly Kafkaesque bureaucracy at the universi-

ty level, but it was smooth at the school level. The School of Business proved to be a very good host

and I really enjoyed the friendly climate at the school.

The School of Business at the University of Nairobi’s Lower Kabete Campus.

The university’s signature colour is not sponsored by the big Danish shipping line...

The lectures were quite diverse due to the different courses and at one of the lectures I brought Bo-

Göran Evaldsson, a fellow Swede who worked for Tetra Pak. At another lecture I brought Olivier

Hartmann of the World Bank. These visitors were very well received by the students; it did not seem

to be the norm to bring in guest lecturers from the industry and public sector to the classes.

Me, teaching in the Bachelor of Commerce course “Contemporary Issues in SCM” on October 15th

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I must say that the discussions with students in the five different courses, in which I lectured were

more intense and fruitful than most discussions with students at Handels. I particularly liked the dis-

cussion about the students’ views on the Chinese activities in Kenya. Since Kenya lacks natural re-

sources, I cannot explain it in any way other than that the Chinese built a consumer market, as I wrote

about in the last newsletter article.

As part of my activities at SoB, I gave one presentation at the 2nd

AIBUMA (African International

Business and Management Conference, see the September article) and one presentation at the 7th OR-

SEA (Operations Research Society of Eastern Africa) conference, both arranged at the Kenyatta Inter-

national Conference Centre in Nairobi. (Yes, it is named after the first president.) I also held a seminar

on research and research funding for the SoB staff and I plan to deepen the collaboration during future

visits in both directions.

Me, the little dot over the left side of the banner, speaking at the 7th

ORSEA conference in the magnificent

auditorium at Kenyatta International Conference Centre. Photo: Bo-Göran Evaldsson.

The activities at UoNbi exceeded my expectations. Advancing research, however, proved to be a

greater challenge than expected. I started some article projects, but partly due to my scattered pro-

gramme and partly due to my co-authors’ lack of time, we have not yet finished any articles. I also

found out too late that I needed a formal research permit to do empirical research in Kenya, and that

would take several months to get. At that stage there was no point in applying and thus I decided to

“stay below the radar”.

I had long meetings and very fruitful discussions with Olivier, the Frenchman from the World Bank.

He has worked for the World Bank for many years in Kenya and other places but is currently placed at

the Bank’s headquarters in Washington D.C. Together we visited the Embakasi Dryport in Nairobi and

interviewed information system operating officers. The Dryport, formally called Inland Container

Depot – Nairobi, is part of KPA, and thus in the same organisation as the Port of Mombasa. Regarding

the information flow, I actually found them to be more advanced, or at least more integrated, than the

corresponding dryport system in the Port of Gothenburg’s hinterland.

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The entrance gate to Embakasi Dryport in Nairobi from the main office of Kenya Port Authorities, October 13th

.

The ports use variants of the same information system, CATOS, but in Kenya it included the dryport

operations in Nairobi and Kisumu. Their current problem was that the rail company was not integrated

and even refused to inform them of when trains would arrive and what they contained. It did not help

that KPA already knew what was in the containers when leaving the Port of Mombasa and just wanted

to improve their operations with a smooth information flow.

The World Bank continues with the project of monitoring information flows along the Northern Corri-

dor between Mombasa and Uganda through Nairobi and Kisumu, as briefly described in my previous

article. In fact, I am both impressed and jealous of what data they can retrieve and the possibilities it

gives for research.

In my last article I wrote about the 14-seater matatus that provide public/private transportation all over

Kenya. They are driven like crazy, and there is a fairly intensive programme to build pavements to

protect pedestrians. Matatu drivers seem to like this since they now have an additional lane for over-

taking cars and other matatus…

Matatus finding their way through Nairobi’s hectic traffic.

The new pavements proved to be as good as a new matatu lane…

In retrospect, I must say that it was a truly fascinating stay in Kenya and I am eager to share my expe-

riences and contacts. I really recommend staying a longer period abroad, and do not look for the safe

and presumably more scientifically productive option of working with researchers with a similar ap-

proach to similar problems in a similar context. To learn the most: look for a different place, with dif-

ferent problems, and, more importantly, different people!