CS Duale Lists Universities Whose Medicine Students Won't Be Licensed to Practise

Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has declared a crackdown on fraud in the Kenyan universities offering medicine programmes. 

The CS noted that select institutions were colluding with government agencies such as the Nursing Council of Kenya to unfairly dish out placements to students. 

He observed that the universities were pushing for fraudulent internship placements, warning that it would not continue under his watch.

The CS identified at least eight universities that he claimed partake in the foregoing malpractice.

He threatened to blacklist the medicine students from the said universities; the students would not be accredited to practise medicine, Duale warned.

"We are going to deal with the universities. I am going to write a very serious letter to those eight universities led by a very notorious university called Baraton University, Baraton, Kenyatta University, Daystar University, Kirinyaga University, Kisii University, Meru University of Science and Technology, among others, I will deal with them. We will deny them their student's licence," he said.

The CS noted that students from the institutions he mentioned were being given preferential treatment when it comes to internship placements.

He wondered why a student who graduated recently is already in the field practising while those who finished their programmes a long time back are yet to be allocated places.

Duale claimed corruption had taken over merit.

"We will deny them even an internship. The fraud starts at the university, and then in the Nursing Council; the story of somebody finishing yesterday and he's given an internship, and there is someone who has graduated two years ago and has no internship, that story will end. We must run this country fair, just, and in accordance with the law, at least as long as I'm the Minister for Health," he said.

The CS's pronouncement came a few days after he revoked postings for 306 medical interns who were found not to have met the required qualifications.

In a statement on Wednesday, July 30, Duale said a review of the recent placement of 2,098 pre-interns had uncovered discrepancies in the eligibility of some of those posted.

"Following a review of the 2,098 pre-interns posted on 1 July 2025, the Ministry has established that 306 individuals were not qualified for internship posting, as they had not yet graduated.

Duale also revealed that the same review process had uncovered a separate group of eligible candidates who had initially been left out of the placement.

The CS advised the group to collect their internship offer letters in person at Afya House on Friday, August 1.

"Further to these findings, the investigation has identified an additional 316 pre-interns who were omitted from the initial posting list and had met the eligibility criteria for posting.