Accreditation Board Appeals Tribunals as a Governance Shock: A Difference-in-Differences Estimate of Statutory Review Deadlines on Academic Program Discontinuation Rates in Kenyan Public Universities

The present analysis theorises the establishment of accreditation board appeals tribunals in Kenya as an exogenous governance shock capable of altering the calculus of academic program discontinuation in public universities. It develops a difference-in-differences identification strategy that exploits the staggered statutory introduction of review deadlines for institutional appeals against accreditation decisions. The central argument is that the creation of a quasi-judicial review mechanism with binding deadlines reduces the administrative certainty of accreditation sanctions, thereby lowering the expected cost of appealing adverse decisions and increasing the likelihood that universities will contest rather than pre-emptively discontinue programs. The analysis specifies the causal mechanism, articulates the assumptions required for credible identification, and distinguishes the tribunal's effect from concurrent governance reforms.