16,000 warned over university courses

More than 16,000 students expecting to join public universities on government-sponsored programmes this year have until Saturday to make fresh choices of courses or forfeit their places.

A further 15,000 have been asked to make their second and final choices for diploma courses in tertiary colleges, according to the agency in charge of selection of qualifiers.

The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service on Monday said some of the candidates either failed to meet the minimum cluster points for degrees they selected earlier or were locked out due to competition.

Secretary John Muraguri said the agency had placed about 42,000 candidates in degree programmes they had earlier selected.

In all, 58,000 candidates who sat the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination met the minimum degree cut-off point based on last year’s tests.

Mr Muraguri said the agency had also placed more than 15,000 candidates in tertiary colleges and asked those who had also failed to find places to reapply.

A total of 93,000 candidates had applied for places at tertiary institutions and universities.

There are 48 tertiary institutions and 31 public universities and colleges under the ambit of the selections agency.

The agency started the second and final online selection on Thursday last week.

“We have listed the index numbers of affected candidates on our web site,” said Mr Muraguri.

The Placement Service had set the cut-off point for admission to degree programmes at B of 60 points for male candidates and B- of 58 points for female candidates.

In addition, all candidates with a minimum overall grade of C- are eligible to apply for diploma programmes.