Education

State asks KUCCPS to push application deadline further to March 4

Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu at a past event. (Photo: File)

By Lucy Mumbi | Monday, February 26, 2024

The ministry has projected that 86 per cent of the 2023 KCSE candidates with C+ and above (171,738) will apply for placement.

Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu has directed the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) to further extend its application deadline to March 4, 2024, to accommodate all eligible candidates.

Machogu said since the opening of the application portal on February 7, 2024, the ministry has been monitoring the process to ensure all targeted applicants have a fair, efficient and effective opportunity to apply for their desired courses.

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In a statement on Monday, he noted that as of February 25, 2024, a total of 121,391 candidates who obtained grades C+ and above in the 2023 KCSE examination had applied for various courses.

“This accounts for 60.8 per cent of the 199,695 Kenyan citizens who scored a mean grade of C+ and above in the 2023 examination,” he said.

The ministry has projected that 86 per cent of the 2023 KCSE candidates with C+ and above (171,738) will apply for placement.

Machogu said the remaining applicants (14 per cent) are expected to seek opportunities in non-participating universities, module II programmes or institutions of higher learning in other countries.

The projections were estimated based on the application behaviour of the 2022 KCSE examinations which represented 70 per cent of all the targeted applicants with C+ and above.

The ministry has urged students who scored between grades C and E to take advantage of the ongoing applications and select their desired diplomas, craft certificates or artisan programmes offered in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions.

“This category of students has the advantage of walking into their preferred Ministry of Education TVET institutions to be assisted with the application process,” Machogu said.

Acknowledging challenges during the application process, the CS urged applicants experiencing payment delays to use the USSD code *222# to confirm their transactions of trigger validation.

“Further, a technical team - comprising representatives from relevant agencies – has been put together to fast-track the application transactions,” he said.

Machogu affirmed that all stakeholders are working together to ensure the challenges are addressed and that all applicants apply to institutions and programmes of their choice.

“The ministry is committed to ensuring that all eligible applicants are given a chance and that no one student is left behind,” he said.

Originally set for February 26, 2024, the deadline was earlier pushed until further notice to accommodate all eligible students.

In a statement on Sunday, KUCCPS Chief Executive Officer Agnes Wahome assured that the processing of applications would begin once all applicants had submitted their course preferences.