Education CS Julius Ogamba speaks during the award of Letter of Interim Authority to Kamagambo University at Kisumu State Lodge, September 15, 2026. /SCREENGRABKamagambo University has been granted a Letter of Interim Authority, allowing it to operate as a university as it works towards attaining a full charter.
The institution, located on the border of Migori and Kisii counties near Kisii town, becomes Kenya's 90th authorised university and the third private university established by the Adventist Church after the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton and the Adventist University of Africa in Ongata Rongai.
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba awarded the Letter of Interim Authority at Kisumu State Lodge on Tuesday following a recommendation by the Commission for University Education (CUE).
Kamagambo University leadership: West Kenya Union President Samuel Misiani and founding Principal Prof. Rei Kesis./PCS
Ogamba challenged the university to make quality, rather than rapid expansion, the foundation of its growth, warning that access to higher education without quality would be a disservice to students and the communities that depend on universities for intellectual and economic development.
"The true measure of Kamagambo will be the quality of its graduates, the value of its research and its contribution to the economy of Nyanza and Kenya as a nation," Ogamba said.
"I urge Kamagambo, therefore, to build capacity, to build staff, facilities and standards before expanding enrolment," he added.
Kamagambo has selected entrepreneurship as a defining feature of two of its first three programmes, but Ogamba urged the institution to give greater priority to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), applied sciences, digital technology, ethical artificial intelligence, modern agriculture and green engineering as it expands its academic programmes.
"Kamagambo must build a strong teaching and research identity that solves local problems, strengthening rural healthcare and supporting entrepreneurship."
The CS said the university must also prepare for a new generation of learners who will enter higher education under the Competency-Based Education (CBE) system.
He said the pioneer cohort of CBE learners, trained to solve problems and think outside the box, is expected to join university in 2029, requiring institutions to have adequate academic, physical and technological capacity to accommodate them.
"Traditional lecture models will not serve them," Ogamba said, calling on universities to modernise their teaching approaches to match the needs of the new generation of learners.
He also urged CUE to work with universities to prepare them for the arrival of the CBE cohort.
President William Ruto, who also addressed the event, challenged Kamagambo to produce graduates capable of responding to the country's economic and social needs while maintaining high academic and ethical standards.
He urged the university to train excellent teachers capable of delivering competency-based education and principled theologians who can provide moral leadership.
"Produce capable business graduates who can strengthen enterprises, cooperatives, and value chains. Depth must come before breadth, and excellence before expansion," Ruto said.
The President called on the university's trustees and leadership to govern wisely, while urging its faculty to teach rigorously, conduct research and protect academic standards.
He challenged students who will join the institution to be ready to learn, question, create and serve saying job opportunities await on the outside world but only the competent stand a real chance of benefitting.
He said agriculture needs better science and stronger value chains, universal healthcare needs skilled professionals and homegrown innovation, affordable housing needs engineers, architects, planners, and new technologies while the digital economy and renewable-energy need talent capable of mastering the technologies reshaping the world.
"Students must encounter businesses, test ideas, build prototypes, understand markets and learn how enterprises survive and grow," he said.
Ruto also asked residents of Migori and the wider Nyanza region to support and hold the institution to high standards, saying its establishment would help shape the prospects of young people in the region.
He said the Letter of Interim Authority marked only the beginning of the university's journey and that its eventual standing would depend on the strength of its leadership, scholarship and ambition.
"May Kamagambo University become known not simply for the degrees it awards, but for the teachers it equips, the enterprises it inspires and the problems it helps Kenya solve," Ruto said.
