Abstract:

The Higher education sector is characterised by frequent state-led policy reforms. This paper contextualises challenges in policy implementation decisions in Kenya's Higher Education sector. Specifically, it explores themes and missing links of complex decision making in vision 2030 policy adoption in Kenya. The research considers the period between 2018 and 2022 that coincided with the vision 2030 policy implementation’s Third Medium Term Plan (2018-2022) and the resulting Ministry of Education (MOE) National Education Sector Strategic Plan (NESSP) 2018-2022. Thus, this article sketches out the contextual, institutional and political situation that motivated responses to policy implementation in the Higher Education sector. It further borrows from key contextual and theoretical influences that help to understand these responses to policy reforms. The outlined responses received through the elite interviews carried out on policy implementation by the ministry of education (MOE) in Kenya are discussed. The findings demonstrate thematic evaluations of emerging prevalence of complex institutional political decision-making including compromise, avoidance, defiance or manipulation. This is further driven by emerging trends in academic capitalism, neoliberalism and changing cultural and philosophical paradigms. Consequently, the article suggests that policy implementation isn’t linear but framed within political responses, legitimacy seeking and nominal abstraction rather than strategic alignment in adoption decision making. Finally, the article summarises policy implications and lessons drawn from the Kenyan experience and concludes by drawing up essential themes of a new framework that can be adopted in policy implementation functions of government. This informs the ongoing development of a wider framework and calls for further research in policy implementation in contexts of institutionalised complex systems.

Keywords:

Public Management and Governance, Politicisation, Policy Implementation, Neoliberalism, Institutionalisation, Higher Education and Institutional Change, Complexity and Decision-Making, Education for sustainable development, stakeholder management, Agenda 2030.