Some lecturers at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa have raised issues with the quality of Lectures, Lecturers and skewed promotions.
Speaking to Hot News on condition of anonymity, a Lecturer at CUEA said there is no professionalism of CUEA’s staff and that there are questionable practices at the Institution.
The lecturers said CUEA’s International Journal of Social and Development Concerns (IJSDC) is poorly managed.
“The International Journal of Social and Development Concerns which is run by instructors from CUEA is poorly managed. 13 out of 15 editorial board members teach at CUEA and they are all male. The chief editors and editorial members are CUEA staff from the Development Studies Department and the Sociology Department, which fall under the supervision of Mr. Wakanyua,”said the lecturer.
Another Lecturer said that Samuel Nderitu Wakanyua , the CUEA acting Dean of Social Science, is accused of assaulting his colleague lecturer Dr Rosa Ko after the two disagreed on the increased number of part-time tutors at the institution.
Most of the part time Lecturers and Tutors were CUEA students and some were reportedly not qualified to teach.
The lecturers said the Journal is not illegal, but it’s being used as a self-publishing machine by CUEA instructors to create fake credentials for promotion.
“For example, one of the Chief Editors, Dr. Mavole, has published 10 articles in IJSDC over the last ten months. Incredibly, he authored 5 articles in one IJSDC issue alone (published 10 months ago). CUEA promoted him from lecturer to Senior lecturer in May 2018,” the lecturers said.
The lecturers added that even the Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences at CUEA, Dr. Samuel Nyanchoga, has one publication in IJSDC.
“CUEA should explain their lack of due diligence by their promotion review board. Do they believe Dr. Mavole’s publications in IJSDC are credible and are that the sort of merit they reward?” posed one of the lecturers.
He added that the Journal is also used to generate income as the journal charges KSh. 15,000 from outsiders for publication.
The Lecturer said the fee is mainly charged to students who want publication because Mr. Urbanus Ndolo (Social Work), Mr. Michael Okuku (Development Studies), Dr. Johnson Mavole (Development Studies), and Mr. Wakanyua told all the master’s candidates in Social Science that it is a requirement for master’s students to publish with a peer-reviewed journal in order to graduate.
“ Mr. Ndolo and Dr. Mavole offered a graduate student of political science, Ibrahim Manyara (he also goes by the name James), publication in IJSDC to fulfill his requirement and he did so – http://www.ijsdc.org/journal/show/ethnicity-and-voterbehaviour-in-presidential-elections-under-the-new-constitution-a-case-of-the2013-elections-in-kajiado-county-kenya,”said the lecturer.
The lecturer went on to say that Dr. Ko was Mr. Manyara’s thesis supervisor and this article was published without her prior knowledge.
“Dr. Ko never gave and signed a copyright consent form. Several sources, including CUEA’s new VC, attested that this requirement does not exist.” said the disgruntled Lecturer.
He said that other names listed on the various articles, which are not known CUEA staff, are most likely CUEA students who were tricked to publish in IJSDC.
However, early this year, when the issues of the quality of lecturers were raised, CUEA through its Communication Head Miriam Chege told NTV that all promotions at the institution are above board.
“All our teaching staff meet the requirements as per our quality objectives and standards laid down by the Commission for University education. All our appointment’s and promotions are purely based on merit,” she said.