67,000 KCSE students picked to join public universities, says board

NAIROBI: More than 67,000 students who passed last year's Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) will join 31 public universities to study for degree programmes later this year.

Statistics from the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) show 67,124 students qualified for admissions after obtaining the cut-off points of B of 60 points and B- of 58 points for male and female students respectively.

Universities will this year admit 10,000 more students compared to last year's enrolment of 57,250.

An additional 41,550 students will join the 50 middle-level colleges including Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC), up from 36,995 students admitted last year.

"The Placement Service Board therefore wishes to inform the 2014 KCSE examination candidates that the online application system will open on Monday, April 20, 2015 and will close on Monday, May 4, 2015 at midnight," reads a document seen by The Standard.

KUCCPS Chief Executive Officer John Muraguri said during the two weeks, students will have an opportunity to select their preferred degree and diploma courses.

GARISSA UNIVERSITY

But the individual choices will be subject to their performance and the availability of slots in the various universities and colleges.

During the revision, applicants who meet the cut-off point set by the placement board for degree programmes may also apply for diploma programmes of their choice, said Mr Muraguri.

He also said candidates whose scores were below the degree cut-off points but have a minimum overall grade of C- may only apply for diploma programmes.

But Garissa University College will not admit students this academic year following the recent terror attack on the campus. Muraguri said the college had requested to be allocated 600 students before the ill-fated terrorist attack.

"We have re-distributed those students to various universities and colleges," he said.

Muraguri said he had prevailed upon universities to create additional slots because of better performance in last year's KCSE. Of the 483,630 candidates who sat last year's examinations, 149,717 scored the minimum university entry grade of C+. Only 123,365 candidates attained the grade in 2013.

Some 3,073 candidates scored grade A in last year's KCSE, compared to 2,722 who posted the same results in 2013. Another 11,768 candidates scored grade A- in last year's examinations compared to 9,759 in 2013.

And 19,814 candidates scored B+ compared to 17,013 in the previous year.

"Universities had only declared about 60,000 slots, but when I looked at the performance it meant we were going to lock out many students. I then asked them to do what it takes to create more space," said Muraguri.

He said the increased capacities also mean the cut-off point shall not be raised because doing so would have locked out many applicants.