Universities face admissions crisis in September

Corporate News

Teachers of Kisumu Day School go through their list of students as they send text messages to KNEC after Education Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi released last year's exam results on Tuesday. PHOTO | TOM OTIENO  

By MUGAMBI MUTEGI, pmutegi@ke.nationmedia.com

In Summary

• A total of 149,717 candidates scored the minimum university entry grade of C+ and above in last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination.
• This is expected to pile pressure on the institutions of higher learning whose infrastructure has failed to keep up with the large number of students seeking admission.
• The crisis of admission is defined by the fact that only 60,000 of 2013’s 123,365 candidates who attained the minimum entry grade made it to public universities.

Kenyan universities are headed for tough times later this year when they will be required to take in the overwhelming number of KCSE candidates who have qualified for admission.

Education secretary Jacob Kaimenyi announced that 149,717 candidates had scored the minimum university entry grade of C+ and above in last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination, 22,000 more than the previous year’s.

A total of 123,365 students or 27.5 per cent of all candidates attained the minimum admission grades in 2013.

This latest outcome is expected to pile pressure on the institutions of higher learning whose infrastructure has failed to keep up with the large number of students seeking admission.

The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) said it was still not certain of the exact number of students who will be selected to join public universities.

“We have asked the public universities to submit their admission capacities by March 15th and we shall use those numbers to place students,” said John Muraguri, the placement body’s chief executive officer.

“Until these numbers are submitted to us, we cannot be certain of the transition rate,” he said, adding that candidates will be invited to review their choices in April.

The crisis of admission is defined by the fact that only 60,000 of 2013’s 123,365 candidates who attained the minimum entry grade made it to public universities.

The situation is made worse by the fact that no new public universities have since been established and the existing ones have not expanded their capacities.

This year’s pass rate of 149,717 students means that approximately 90,000 will be forced to join technical colleges or enroll to pursue more costly courses in private institutions beginning September.

Others will have to enroll for expensive parallel degree courses in public varsities or quit their pursuit for higher education altogether.

There have been plans for the State to start students enrolled in private universities and colleges but the policy is yet to be effected partly because the Higher Education Loans Board itself is facing an acute shortage of funds.

READ: Helb in cash plea as KCSE finalists hit record high

Those students who secure university places will also face an accommodation crisis that has been occasioned by limited investment in hostels and the government’s effort to delink admission from bed capacity.

“This increase in candidature was the highest in the past three years,” said Prof Kaimenyi attributing the increase to arrival of the first beneficiaries of the free primary and subsidized secondary education at university.

The increased number of students joining universities will also pile pressure on Helb which has had to cut the amount of money it grants students forcing many students to live in squalor.

Helb expects to receive much more than the 110,000 applications it received last year, out of which it was able to assist only 44,000 students.

“This (the new lot of students) is expected to put more pressure on us. We are lobbying the National Assembly for more funds,” Helb chief executive Charles Ringera told the Business Daily.

Last year’s 483,630 candidates who sat for KCSE represented an 8.3 per cent increase when compared to the 446,696 students who sat for the exam the previous year.

A total of 3,073 scored an overall mean grade of A plain, a 0.61 per cent increase from the 2,722 students who attained the top score in 2013.

Some 1,090 special needs students sat for the examination with 180 of them attaining C+ and above, five attained an A plain while another 14 scored an A-.

Students’ performance improved in 15 out of the 31 subjects offered in including English, Kiswahili, Chemistry, Biology and History and Government, prof Kaimenyi said.

Candidates’ performance declined in 10 subjects including Mathematics Alternative A, the second successive drop in the past two years which the CS termed as “alarming”.

Exam irregularities declined in the 2014 only 3,812 candidates having been implicated in cheating -- a 22 per cent decrease from the previous 2,975.

The irregularities were however still the second highest in the past 12 years.