Gov't alarmed after 50,000 qualified students fail to apply for university placement

Over 42,000 of those chose not to apply, while 7,000 who applied were not placed. This comes as the Ministry of Education now says it has reviewed and revised downwards the cost of university by 40 per cent.

As the students now wait for their admission letters to different universities and colleges across the country, the ministry is raising the alarm over the number of students who did not seek placement even though they made the C+ cut-off mark.

Dr Julius Ogambo said, "The students who scored C+ and above, we have 7,640 who elected to go to TVET institutions other than university. We have 6,750 who chose to join KMTC and other institutions and primary TTCs."

The students who did apply seemed to favour courses like engineering and medicine as the top choices.

However, the ministry says it has seen an increase in the interest shown for other courses like primary school teaching diplomas, which received 20,786 applications against a capacity of 13,823. A total of 11,636 students who applied were picked for this course.

KMTCs across the country also attracted a high number of applicants, with 52,725 students seeking admission there. The course with the most demand was nursing. Out of those, only 25,034 were given chances.

Dr Julius Ogambo stated, "Other KMTC programmes that are in high demand are Clinical Medicine and Surgery, Medical Emergency Technician and Community Health, among others.

In total, 25,034 students have been placed in KMTC programmes. This includes 6,750 students who scored C+ and above in the 2024 KCSE examination.

The KUCCPS portal remains open for students who haven’t applied for placement to do so. The Higher Education Fund portals are also open for applications for higher education funding.

The government says it has now considerably brought down the cost of university courses by between 15% and 40% after the revision of the means testing instruments to include parameters like school fees paid previously by the student’s family, the size of their farms, medical bills paid, and Hustler Fund applications, among others.

"We are capturing all these in order to place students as close as possible to their actual financial situation. The goal is to make education as affordable and accessible to all," said Dr Julius Ogambo.