Education Cabinet Secretary Machogu has directed that universities admit all students unconditionally as funding data is analyzed and students placed accordingly.
“Universities and colleges shall admit all students from the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) cohort as placed by the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) pending the processing of their applications for funding,” Machogu said.
Students reporting to public universities for their first academic year will therefore not be sent away for fees and the opening dates will be flexible to allow all students to get admission.
The CS also directed all universities and colleges to have in place a help desk to support first-year students who may need assistance in relation to their funding applications.
During a meeting of Vice Chancellors (VCs) on Wednesday, the VC’s Committee Chairperson Prof Daniel Mugendi said that no first-year students will be locked out of class.
Prof Mugendi said students will be allowed to resume classes until the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) communicates to them about the status of each learner.
The VCs also announced that the reporting dates for the students will remain flexible until all students have been put in the various eligibility categories.
“We agreed not to fix the reporting dates because HELB and Universities Fund (UF) were taking too long to process the student’s funding data,” said Prof Mugendi, who is also the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Embu.
However, Machogu has assured students who have been unable to apply for scholarships and loans under the new university funding model that his ministry is resolving the issue.
Machogu, while addressing the National Assembly on Thursday, stated that the challenges students faced arose from invalidated National Identification Cards (IDs) and the Integrated Personnel Registration System (IPRS).
“The intervening processes are undergoing so as to ensure that the IPRS are reviewed to support and accommodate the Identity Card Number validation requests during this application period,” Machogu stated.
Application for university scholarships and loans started on July 31 and is expected to be closed on September 7.
By Thuita Jaswant
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