What does the rise and decline of STEM enrollment in Kenyan universities tell us about the Kenyan economy?
A pitch to increase STEM enrollment (and fix higher education in Kenya)
Thank you for being a regular reader of An Africanist Perspective. If you haven’t done so yet, please hit subscribe to receive timely updates along with over 25,000 other subscribers.
I: The share of university students enrolled in engineering has been in decline for 60 years
In the early 1960s the share of Kenyan university students enrolled in STEM subjects was 14.5%. By 1970 the share had increased to 49.9%, before peaking at 57.6% in 1981. However due to the expansion of the University of Nairobi (and the creation of new universities), by 1991 STEM enrollment had declined to 17.3% of students, before rising marginally to 23.2% in 2001. Then came over two decades of dizzying massification of enrollment in which the number of enrolled university students increased from about 50,000 to more than 450,000. This shift saw the STEM share shrink to just under 12%.
