Over 160,000 students who sat for last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination will join different public and private Universities in the country according to education cabinet secretary Professor George Magoha.
Another 331,000 who did not achieve the minimum entry cut-off grade to get direct university entry will be eligible to join Technical and vocational education and training -TVET institutions across the country to undertake different technical and artisan courses.
CS Magoha announced that the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service – KUCCPS that is mandated to undertake the placement of students joining higher learning institution in the country is now ready to start the selection process of students whereby each student will have known the institution they will be joining by the end of the month of July.
“I am pleased to note that KUCCPS is now ready to proceed with the university and colleges placement for the 2020 candidates and we have over 331,000 openings in the TVET sector and over 160,000 openings in both public and private universities that are for government sponsored students,” Magoha said in a function at Joseph Kang’ethe primary school in Kibra Nairobi City county.
He reiterated that all the 143,000 students who scored a mean score of C+ and above shall get a chance to join the universities in the country.
At the same time the CS cautioned parents across the country to stop the notion that all students who qualify to join university should go ahead and join universities yet they can still pursue technical and artisan courses in the polytechnics and technical institutions and make it in life.
“Who has told you that the 143,000 students who qualified to join university want to go to university? If your aim is to become a finest plumber like myself do you want to go the university way or technical way whereby you will be earning a lot of money after three years when the so called university graduates will be tarmacking for 10 years without a job. We must change our mindset,” said Professor Magoha.
Form one selection to Kick Off By June 15
The CS further revealed that form one selection exercise for the 2020 candidates will soon kick off and parents and members of the public will get a public announcement about the exercise by June 15th 2021.
He further added that the government has put in place all the measures to ensure that there is 100 per cent transition of students from class 8 to secondary school hence there is no cause for alarm about the selection process.
“Form one selection is going to commence soon and we shall announce to the public by around 15th of June and I want to further explain that there is no cause for alarm because we shall place every child in high school as we target 100% transition,” said Magoha.
A total of 1,187,517 candidates sat for the 2020 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education KCPE and are now waiting to join form one while over 750,000 candidates sat for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams KCSE in the same year.