This archive report was first published on 4 July 2021.
As of July 4, 2021, over 43,000 Kenyan students who scored university entry grades in the 2020 KCSE examination but missed their preferred degree courses have until Monday to revise their degree choices.
According to Agnes Mercy Wahome, the CEO of the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS), nearly 23,000 of the affected candidates had already submitted their applications by the time she made her appeal.
Wahome urged those who did not merit their initial choices due to competition and had not yet revised their choices to do so before the Monday deadline, which is scheduled to close on July 5, 2021 at 3 pm.
The KUCCPS CEO noted that the agency had made a lot of effort to reach out to the students through messages, email, and phone calls directly and through the principals of their former schools.
However, some students indicated that they had opted to join university under self-sponsorship, while others were planning to enroll at institutions that do not take part in the KUCCPS student placement process, such as Strathmore and USIU.
Wahome also raised concern that in some regions, many candidates qualified for university but failed to apply due to a notion that completing Form Four was the end of education.
She appealed to leaders in Mandera, Garissa, Wajir, Isiolo, Turkana, Marsabit, West Pokot, Lamu, and Kilifi counties to encourage and mobilize their young people who have qualified for admission to universities and colleges to apply.
Out of the 142,540 candidates who qualified for degree courses in the 2020 KCSE examination, 131,833 (92.5 percent) had applied for their preferred courses in universities and TVET colleges by the end of the first revision on June 11.
