University Background
The University of Eldoret (UoE) was established upon the award of Charter by the President on 11th February, 2013, as the Chepkoilel University College. The institution was founded in 1946 by the white settlers initially as a Large Scale Farmers Training Centre. In 1984, it was converted to a Science Teachers’ Training College at Diploma level. It was later converted into a university campus – Chepkoilel University Campus of Moi University offering basic and natural science degree programs. In 2010 the Campus was upgraded to Chepkoilel University College, a Constituent College of Moi University. The University is Science, Environment/Natural Resource, Agriculture and Technology based institution and has grown steadily from the initial Schools of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Science to the current eight (8) schools with 34 academic departments and a student population of above 14,000; and teaching and non-teaching staff number of over 1,300. The total University acreage is 1,054, part of which is set aside for agricultural production.
Tertiary education in Kenya has expanded exponentially in the last two decades; every sub-county has at least a TVET institution and it is planned that every county should host at least one public university. The number of public universities and university colleges has increased to 34 and there are about 70 universities including private ones. Recently the Government has called on the rationalization of university programs and their numbers due to the huge financial burden they exert on the former. The Government has established Universities Development Fund and instituted Differentiated Unit Cost as ways of financing the universities and at the same time urging the universities to look for alternative sources of financing their programs, establish income generating ventures, Public private partnerships and international partnerships. In view of all these emerging issues, there have been repeated calls to universities to rethink their strategies and embrace transformative agenda. Currently the University of Eldoret has embarked on transformative agenda anchored upon:
- Transforming Academic programs
In an effort to make the academic programs more competitive and relevant to the ever changing labour market the university reviews its programs every 4 years and continues to develop new ones. Recently the university embarked on harmonization of its academic programs with the view to rationalize these against the number of faculty and their relevance. However, at the same time the school of Agriculture and Biotechnology developed two trans-disciplinary programs in MSc. in Gender and Agriculture and MSc. in Food Security. In order to improve on the employability of our graduates we have revised our curriculum to have the students perform the Practicum on the farmers’ fields. We have placed student attachments to the end of Fourth year and this has increased the possibility of these students being retained at these firms. Read more here
The RUFORUM Blog 
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