The Young Communist League (YCL) condemns the latest efforts by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is working with the Kenya Government to capitate public university funding. These IMF measures will deny the poor and bright Kenyans the right to higher education and put Kenya on a path of ignorance and more poverty.
YCL join all progressives in denouncing IMF's dreaded anti-poor-people structural adjustment policies (SAPS), whose effects are known to all. If these policies are enacted, they will fulfil a lifelong campaign by the IMF to impose education-for-profit in Kenya: killing yet another public sector and opening a new avenue to exploit Kenyans. Like in other sectors, these policies will cripple the education sector, mutilate what is left of our research and innovation and lead to massive retrenchment of workers.
It will mean a double loss for Kenyans: citizens will be saddled with yet another expensive, misused IMF loan, and we will see more Kenyans suffering under the weight of increased tuition fees. Families will be forced to take loans to educate their children, and worst of all, many bright Kenyans will miss out on higher education.
The YCL wishes to clarify to the public that the purported reforms by the IMF cannot solve the complex issues facing our institutions of higher learning. Taking lessons from countries that cut their spending on higher education, we know that the only ones who will benefit from this venture will be the banks that will profit from giving students more 'compulsory' loans. There is no single scenario where the average Kenyan will win. Not now, not in the future. Indeed, defunding higher education will deny many families and communities the opportunity to escape poverty and suffering.
We cannot afford to sacrifice our future and country to the IMF's opportunistic, inhumane, and failed policies. We posit that well-meaning leaders of public universities, students and concerned stakeholders can develop better solutions to meet broader national goals of increasing higher education for Kenyans from all socioeconomic backgrounds, not just the rich. We are willing to provide alternative thinking outside the dreaded IMF proposals. We will continue to advocate for broader solutions that increase accountability and efficiency without compromising enrollment and access to higher education.
The Young Communist League continues to remind students and Kenyans that the only road to quality, affordable and finally universal education in university is only through socialism, as advanced by the Communist party of Kenya. The struggle for socialism needs you! Finally, we call on the president to implement his promise on the Education charter, which promised to increase capitation to all tertiary institutions.
Down with commercialization of education down!
Down with neoliberal globalization down!
Down with capitalism down!
Brain Mathenge
General Secretary
Young Communist League of Kenya.
About the Young Communist League of Kenya.
The Young Communist League (YCL) of Kenya is a voluntary mass organization for the youth. YCL is the militant wing of the Communist Party of Kenya. Founded in 2019, YCL is a non-tribal, non-sexist youth organization with open membership to young people committed to the emancipation of the working class, the peasants and other oppressed people in Kenya and around the globe.
YCL is devoted to transforming the economic system of Kenya from capitalism to socialism in which there exists no institutional oppression of one person against another. The Marxist-Leninist ideology guides all its policies, programs and activities.
Members obtain general and scientific knowledge on socialism to enhance their ability to serve the people, promote new socialist ways and customs, and advocate communist ethics. They are called to step forward and fight bravely to defend the interest of the masses, to act consciously to reverse the damaging effects of tribalism and to oppose all forms of discrimination. YCL recognizes the Communist Party of Kenya (CPK) as the socialist party in our country and enjoys political and ideological guidance from the CPK.