Strathmore University has grown in leaps and bounds over the last 7 years increasing the capacity to offer degree courses to nine faculties. This growth has been driven by a market demand for the quality offered by the university. This demand has not only grown in number of quantity (number of students being sought by the market) but also in terms of quality and breadth of the courses being offered. In the last 5 years there has been a clear demand for engineering students based on the experience that Strathmore University has already gained as a center of research on solar efficiency as well as the different input provided by experts from the university on renewable energy.
As part of our promise, the students, parents, government, community and all our stakeholders, Strathmore University has maintained a ‘market-driven-student’ approach. The market in Kenya in the region is actively in need of engineering capacity to offer innovative solutions to both business and social sectors rather than have imported solutions. This specifically brings Strathmore University to the fore with the options of providing quality programs in engineering that can serve the regional market demands.
Strathmore University has long considered offering the three traditional engineering degrees. The degrees that have been envisaged are Electrical, Mechanical and Civil Engineering.
Strathmore lays its success on ensuring that the university molds and nurtures talent in its faculty while embedding market oriented needs within its curriculum. It is with this in mind that the school of engineering will be started off under one of the more established Faculty of Information Technology to form a new School of Information Technology and Engineering Sciences. All approvals needed by the University Council and the Commission for University Education in Kenya have been received.
Being market driven Strathmore University wishes to partner with an industry player or a well-established university in engineering to deliver to the market skills ready to be deployed.
To establish a competent School of Engineering, Strathmore University recognizes the need to have modern, comfortable facilities with functioning infrastructure and latest technologies. It also recognizes the need to have the best faculty staff to be able to provide knowledge, research and skills to the students and the market.
To meet this demands, Strathmore University Foundation seeks partners to engage with in establishment of the Strathmore University Engineering School through facilities development, acquisition of equipment and capacity development of staff in the faculty.
The overall objective of this initiative is to establish a regional premier engineering and research institution, forming professionals with creative minds, innovative ideas and sound practical skills for the market, and to shape a future where technology works for the betterment of mankind.
The university has also engaged in discussions with University of Nairobi to be able to develop PhD holders in engineering and we hope that this will build to reduce the big gap we have in engineers with PhD in the country and offer a pool of competent faculty to draw our expertise from. This also goes along the principle of Strathmore of building local capacity for the local market especially where there is a felt need.
The University has also engaged with some institutions in Europe in an effort to get both financial and capacity support to deliver quality engineering programs and offer opportunities for students to undertake their industrial attachment in their companies/factories to gain top of the market experience.
The projects seek a capital outlay of KES 500 million