80,000 Kenyan students to join varsities, colleges

NAIROBI: About 80,000 students who sat last year’s Form Four national examinations will be admitted to various universities and colleges.

The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) board Tuesday adopted the final list generated after the completion of first and second courses revision exercises.

Documents seen by The Standard indicate some 67,790 students have been selected to pursue degree programmes this year in the 31 pubic universities. This is an increase of about 10,500 students from last year’s placement. Another 11,523 students will join the 50 middle-level colleges for diploma programmes.

Of the 483,630 candidates who sat last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations, only 149,717 scored the minimum university entry grade of C+. Some 123,365 candidates attained the same grade in 2013.

KUCCPS Chief Executive Officer John Muraguri said all selected students must report in September.

“The board met today (Tuesday) and approved the 2015/16 placement list. It shall be ratified during the stakeholders meeting to be held on July 21 and after that, students will get admission letters,” said Muraguri, adding: “All the selected students will receive a mobile phone text message with details of courses and institutions they have been selected to join.”

The document reveals that some 1,493 students have benefited from the affirmative action based on the three categories of gender, minority groups and persons with disability.

Of these, 363 students benefited under the gender category. This means even male students were considered in the female-dominated programmes such as Nursing and Hospitality courses.

Also, some 967 students were considered under the minority and marginalised groups. Some 163 students confirmed to have been registered with the Nationals Council for Persons with Disabilities also benefited under the affirmative action. Only 57 students were selected under this category last year.

The board set the cut-off point for placement to degree programmes at Grade B of 60 points for male candidates and B- (minus) of 58 points for female candidates.

And for the first time, two students with mental disability and another two with speech disorder have been selected to join universities and colleges. Previously, only the physically challenged and students with hearing impairment applied to be considered for university slots.