Thread by @wmnjoya

There's one thing we need to understand: subjecting education and other social services to market forces does not make them less efficient. It makes the managers greedier and the theft more spectacular #RecessionKE

Every time you see a mananger use market logic to determine the value of services, expecting massive looting down the road. It has worked with Britain's NHS wherea mnagement consultants consumed expensive entertainment as the money to treat patients dwindled #recessionKE

Universities were promised reform through cost cutting through outsourcing services like catering and medical care, and increased revenue collection through real estate development for rent. 15 years later, the bed of roses they promised is a nightmare of thorns #RecessionKE

Once universities outsource their food and medical services, the focus shifts from the best services to the tendering process. The staff start to negotiate kickbacks with service providers, which the providers have to recoup by offering poorer services. #recessionKE

As student discontent with dwindling services grows, student leaders are then invited to be part of the tendering process. Which simply coopts students into the gravy train. The student leaders negotiate their own kick backs and services still don't improve #recessionKE

The other thing that happens to varsities bowing to market management is that with more business, you need more administrative than academic staff: more accountants, procurement, audit, admin, etc. Benjamin Ginsberg refers to this as the "administrative bloat." #RecessionKE

Admin staff begin to silence academics who do not have the time or expertise to supervise the business side of the university. Uni senates, which should determine that expenditure supports better education, are reduced to sitting ducks to manage student discontent #recessionKE

Admin staff also impose business management practices that bog down faculty in paperwork of performance management, which essentially makes lecturers responsible for everything that happens in the classroom. Which means even more distraction away from uni management #recessionKE

Guess who reinforces this dysfunction: private sector and government. Private sector goes to media singing about how education standards are dwindling, graduates can't do the work. Private media laps it up like a dog but doesn't investigate the source of the problem #recessionKE

And of course media won't investigate, because with dwindling education, unis can only grow student numbers for more revenue through marketing, meaning advertisements in the same media houses. #RecessionKE

As education dwindles and public uproar rises, superman Matiang'i and @CUE_Kenya come to the rescue. They spit fire and brimstone about streamlining unis and CUE gives academics even more paperwork to fill, and inspects unis like meat inspectors inspect butcheries #RecessionKE

The public heaves a sigh that "the government is doing something, " not realizing that the hard talk is just a performance. Inspection is done, but the devil is in the detail. The most CUE is interested in is how exams are set and administered. #recessionKE

I need to do a side bar on exams here.

Increased focus on reporting about exams means less interest of faculty in actual teaching. University rituals around exams: setting, moderation, marking, moderation, repeat, can put wedding planners to shame #RecessionKE

And the students pick it up. They care less for what the learn than for whether the content is coming in the exam.

But worst of all is that obsession with exams means more cheating by both faculty and students #recessionKE

But more exam cheating is good business because unis can then invest not in better teaching, but in better surveillance - more invigilators, more CCTV, and best of all, admin can harass faculty even more. Exams are easier to supervise than improving teaching. #RecessionKE

But back to government. CUE inspections don't improve university education. They just police it more. They don't encourage innovation. They encourage compliance. They don't deal with the neoliberalism as the root cause of dwindling standards. #RecessionKE

So CUE inspections are actually a free ride for neoliberal managements. And admins know this. With all oversight gone (students co-opted, faculty distracted and government pacified), it becomes the uni admins' turn to eat. #RecessionKE

And admins make it worse by harassing academics to prove how they'll make money, not how they teach and research. Departments of the arts and humanities, which ask question like the ones in this thread, are called useless and unviable by even private sector and CUE #RecessionKE

The universities eventually collapse under debt and fights over inefficiency, which suits GoK and private sector fine because they don't want Kenyan uni graduates anyway. Graduates ask for proper wages, see the bs in neoliberal propaganda and call for social change #RecessionKE

The long story short is that the neoliberal logic applied to universities destroys education and makes unis cash cows of corruption. There can be no improvement in uni education as long as we continue to apply market values to higher ed #RecessionKE