The Politics

This study analyzes the transformation of Kenya'spublic universities through marketization andprivatization by focusing on one university intransition. It identifies the strategies used toachieve marketization and privatization and theattendant anxiety generated. Both external andinternal factors catalyzed the transformation.Marketization strategies included the corporatizationof university management through thede-politicization of the university chancellorshipcompetitive recruitment of the vice-chancelloradministrative reconfigurations registration ofunions and revitalization of student leadership.These developments have generated role conflictsinsider recruitment and administrative misalignmentloss of faculty power in governance collectivebargaining failure and disruption of learning.Privatization was attained through thecommercialization of learning reflected in theadmission of privately sponsored students and theprivatization of students' accommodation and boardingservices. Consequently conflict over revenuesharing excessive workload threat to academicquality and students engaging in risky behavior as acoping strategy were the outcomes.