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Kuccps to open portal for university admissions next week
The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (Kuccps) Chief Executive Officer Agnes Mercy Wahome during the release of the placement report for the KCSE 2023 candidates in Nairobi on May 21, 2024.
The 246,391 students who qualified for university admission in the 2024 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations will finally start the process of applying for placement when the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (Kuccps) opens the applications portal.
The CEO of Kuccps Dr Agnes Mercy Wahome has told Nation that the agency has received details of the available capacities from universities and will announce the exact date once the board approves the process. The academic calendar for most universities begins between August and September. m
“This week, we received the approved capacities from universities. They have declared capacities of about 300,000, so you can see that it’s more than the students who qualified for admission. We’ll place all students who qualified and who will apply for placement,” Dr Wahome said.
While appearing before the Committee on Education of the National Assembly on Wednesday, the Cabinet Secretary for Education Julius Ogamba said that the portal would be opened before the end of the month.
“There was no clear understanding regarding Kuccps and university funding, especially given that the current funding model was shaped by a court decision. We agreed to first open the Kuccps portal. Additionally, we agreed that by the end of this month, the portals would be open for university students. We are now working on what should happen next and addressing related issues,” Mr Ogamba told MPs.
Students who qualified for university admission have been in limbo over their fate as various issues cloud their placement and funding.
This is after the High Court last December quashed the funding model introduced by the government in 2023 and it is not yet clear how the new students alongside those in their second and third year of study will be funded.
Kuccps appealed the ruling but its attempt to have the ruling stayed to allow it place students into various programmes flopped when the High Court ruling against an application by Kuccps.
Dr Wahome said that the applications portal will not display the cost of the academic programmes as has been over the last two years, in compliance with the court ruling.
Dr Wahome declined to say how the students will be funded, stating that the mandate of Kuccps is on placing qualified students does not extend to their funding. Students are funded through the Universities Fund which caters for their tuition as capitation (under the deferentiated
“We can’t display the cost of the programmes. Placement and funding have been delinked,” she said.
Under the model, the cost of the academic programme (at market rates) would be displayed on the applications portal for students to see before applying. They would then apply for a scholarship which was awarded by UF and then a tuition loan through the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb). The board also gives student loans for upkeep.
Students who apply for placement in private universities qualify for the student loans but not for upkeep after government stopped sponsoring students who study in private universities.
In a letter dated January 15 2024 Mr Ogamba wrote to Dr Wahome instructing the Kuccps not to place government-sponsored students in private universities. He referenced a directive by President William Ruto when he spoke at the fifth Graduation Ceremony of Scotts Christian University.
The programme to place of government-sponsored students in private universities was started in 2016. The government still owes private universities over Sh45 billion in unremitted tuition fees for the students it placed in private institutions, some who have already graduated.
“This is a reiteration of the policy adopted following the roll-out of the student-centred funding model that delinked placement from funding, and under which students placed to public universities are eligible for both scholarships and loans,” reads the letter by Mr Ogamba.
Last year, President Ruto appointed a committee to review the funding model. Sources within government told Nation that although Mr Ogamba submitted the report of the committee to the President, he cannot act on it because of the pending court case.
The outlawed model appears to have pushed more students to ditch public universities and enrol in private universities as shown by the placement data released by the Kuccps over the two years it was in operation.
