This study is a critical analysis of the complex process and dynamics of negotiating and implementing World Bank structural adjustment reforms in Kenya. The Education Sector Adjustment Credit (EdSAC) 1990 to 1995, sought to reform university financing, was implemented against all odds. The study gains in significance because of its implications for the wider Sub-Saharan African context in which such financial reforms are generally deemed to have failed. It is anticipated therefore that the case study will be of theoretical and practical benefit to national governments, and to international agencies and recipients.
The study includes three major theories: agency, patron-client, and principal-agent. Agency is key to exercising leverage and leadership, at the national and international level, even where constraints appear to be pervasive. Patronage is deeply embedded within the African context, and the international/national perspective is examined using the conceptual lens of principal-agent. Collectively, these three perspectives frame the analysis of the case study.
Reform of university financing is a major policy dilemma in Sub-Saharan Africa. At issue is a policy shift from total financing by governments to one in which the beneficiaries and their families have to contribute to the costs of university education. This policy shift has reverberations because it is fundamentally about power, privilege, economic and social mobility and has implications for access and equity in the provision of education. The choice for African governments is stark.
African governments are being forced to reconsider university financial reform because African universities are in crisis. Economic decline in the last twenty years has put a severe strain on funds available to finance education, eroding the potential of governments to sustain funding at current levels.
The success of the EdSAC was a tribute to the part that agency played in domestic politics, policy dialogue, negotiation and compromise. A judicious mix of economic rationalism and political agency increases political stability and enhances the possibility for successful reform. The case study also confirms the literature, that if the objectives of the donor and the recipient differ, the reward incentive must be great.
