New agency to take up varsity admissions

The Joint Admissions Board has been disbanded in a new law awaiting presidential assent. (Editorial: Plan to do away with JAB appears unwise)

It will be replaced by the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service, according to the Universities Bill (2012) that was passed by Parliament last week.

But unlike Jab, which was mainly charged with the admission of government-sponsored students to the seven public universities and their constituents, the new body has been given an extended mandate and will admit students in private universities and colleges.

It will also admit students to public universities through the self-sponsored programme, usually referred to as the parallel degree programme.

Previously, Jab has been admitting students on the basis of bed-capacity, with little regard to the degree choices they wished to pursue.

And students from well-off families have taken advantage of this inadequacy to seek admission to the public universities directly through the self-sponsored programme.

The net-effect has been that these students choose the courses they wish to pursue at the expense of thousands from humble backgrounds who are thrown into courses they did not even apply to study.

Thus, a candidate who scores a B enrols to study law or medicine through the parallel programme, while an A- candidate is forced to take a non-professional course under the regular programme.

Currently, more students are enrolled in the parallel than the regular programme in public universities.

United States International University vice-chancellor Prof Freida Brown said the new agency will level the playing field in student admissions and boost the number of those seeking higher education.

“It will clear the existing backlog of students awaiting admission,” said Prof Brown, who also chairs the association of private university VCs.

Last year, private universities petitioned the government to scrap Jab, terming it “a friendly association of public university vice-chancellors.”

In a letter to the Higher Education PS, the universities said Jab was an illegal entity, which discriminated in admission of students.

However, it is not yet clear how the new agency, which will also offer career and guidance services to students, will coordinate admissions in the private universities.

According to the Bill, a board will run the activities of the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service. It will work with the Higher Education Loans Board to determine the eligibility of students to be awarded loans and bursaries.