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Varsity admission body KUCCPS ensures fairness, says don
A student fills registration forms for admission at the University of Nairobi in May 2013. Government-sponsored students will now be admitted to private universities as the authorities seek to address congestion at public institutions of higher learning. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU | NATION MEDIA GROUP
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Chairman of the Vice-chancellors Committee, Prof Richard Mibey, said central placement offers a common platform to avoid duplication of admission.
Universities agreed that the KUCCPS should retain the role to ensure fairness in admissions.
In the Bill that is already before Parliament, Aden Duale seeks to change the law so that universities and colleges can make their own admissions.
A government plan to get universities and colleges to admit students is facing an uncertain future.
The chairman of the Vice-chancellors Committee, Prof Richard Mibey, said they had agreed that the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) should retain the role to ensure fairness in admissions.
“KUCCPS has continued with the legacy of the Joint Admission Board (JAB) where each student accesses courses of choice on the basis of merit, transparency and equity,” Prof Mibey said in a statement Thursday.
He said central placement offers a common platform to avoid duplication of admission, which would deny deserving Kenyans opportunities in universities and colleges as provided for by the Universities Act of 2012.
“It was, therefore, resolved that vice-chancellors and principals will not accept an amendment to the Universities Act that seeks to do away with KUCCPS and revert the responsibility of admitting students to individual universities and colleges,” said Prof Mibey, who is also the Moi University vice-chancellor.
He spoke after a meeting between vice-chancellors, principals of colleges and Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i, among other stakeholders.
In the Bill that is already before Parliament, National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale seeks to change the law so that universities and colleges can make their own admissions.
“The admission and placement of students to universities or colleges shall be vested in the respective universities or colleges,” states the Bill.
In effect, the change will reduce the placement service to developing career guidelines for universities and students.
The agency is a creation of the Universities Act of 2012 and replaced the JAB that handled admissions to public universities and colleges.
It is tasked with coordinating and placing students in public universities and colleges by ensuring fairness, equity and openness.
POLITICAL INTERFERENCE FEARS
Universities and colleges generate hundreds of millions of shillings in application fees paid by students.
The decision could also give politicians more say in admission of students to institutions considered prestigious and those offering high-demand courses such as medicine and engineering among others.
Vice-chancellors and principals of colleges have also supported implementation of the Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC).
Prof Mibey said going forward, funding to universities and constituent colleges should be done on the basis of differentiated unit cost, to promote equity.
The DUC proposes to use a standard formula that will ensure equity in allocation of funds to universities and constituent colleges based on a standard rate per course per student.
