Profile: Ngotho Kariuki, Professor of Accounting and Taxation

Professor Ngotho Kariuki’s posting to the University of Buea in Cameroon has been so successful that the institution has requested for the CFTC expert’s services to be extended from the initial one year from 2006 to two, and then to four years.

The Visiting Professor of Accounting and Taxation aims to leave the university with the capacity to carry out lectures, postgraduate courses and research with less reliance on external assistance.

When Professor Kariuki was recruited from Kenya, he found ‘there was a dire scarcity of staff, especially in accounting and finance-related subjects’. Since arriving in Buea in September 2006, he has increased full-time staff in his department from one to four, with a fifth arriving soon, while part-time staff have gone from two to six.

Thanks to the recruitment programme, says Professor Kariuki, ‘teaching workloads will be reduced and the staff will be able to pursue their doctorate studies and at the same time help in teaching. If all of them finish their PhD programmes, then we will have built good capacity for academic development’.

During Professor Kariuki’s posting, the university began introducing Master of Science (MSc) and doctorate (PhD) programmes in accounting, banking and finance, economics and management, which started in October 2008. Most current academic staff members are now registered for PhD studies under his supervision. In addition to undergraduate and postgraduate courses, the university offers professional qualifications in accountancy and taxation.

Professor Kariuki is one of a handful of non-Cameroonians on campus, which is served by 250 academic staff and has about 10,000 students. He has introduced an internship programme for students to broaden their experience through coursework and practical training. Another achievement is the establishment of a seminar series on entrepreneurship, which has made the university ‘a leader in entrepreneurship education’. This series is set to be expanded into a full-scale entrepreneurship course to cater for all students from first-year undergraduates to PhD candidates.

‘The Ministry of Education has taken entrepreneurship education to be a cornerstone of youth economic employment’, says Professor Kariuki.

Despite the challenges faced by teaching staff and students caused by frequent power and internet failures, and a lack of textbooks, Professor Kariuki believes the atmosphere on the campus to be positive.

‘Colleagues are co-operative and supportive – they are jolly in spite of difficulties with under-funding. Everyone is willing to learn, despite huge workloads’, he remarks. ‘This is a place where you work freely and let others work freely’.

Professor Kariuki took up the CFTC posting because ‘being a member of the Commonwealth, I felt that it would be good to join this worldwide brotherhood of humanity … the CFTC acts as a good intermediary between regions with surplus expertise and those with a deficit’.

‘I attend staff and student association events off campus and provide advice and support, be it moral or material, whenever I can’, says Professor Kariuki. He is a patron of the Commonwealth Students’ Association and University of Buea Accounting Association.

Yet the key to his Cameroonian experience, he states, is to enable the country to become self-sufficient in the provision of training in accounting and finance.

‘By training lecturers up to PhD level and others to master’s level, they will be able to train others after I have completed my posting. Being more accomplished in their respective fields of expertise will improve their professionalism and help inspire a higher level of academic achievement among their students. This way, these well-trained lecturers will be able to sustain the level of learning and intellectual accomplishments of the university faculty and also produce well-qualified students to support commerce and industry.’

Key Links:

• Country Profile: Cameroon
• Education