Placement and Funding of 2022 Candidates to Change. The government may not place candidates of last year in any private university if a push by Members of Parliament goes through.
If the push goes through all 174,965 2022 KCSE Candidates who qualified for university placement will be posted to public universities across the country.
This was revealed when the KUCCPS appeared before the Public Investment Committee on Governance and Education to answer audit questions for the financial year 2018/2019.
All thirty five public universities and their constituent colleges have 194,000 vacancies which means some extra spacss will be left unutilized in public universities. KUCCPS revealed that they had reserved twenty nine thousand slots for private universities.
This implies that the slots will be diverted and distributed equally among the public Varsities if the push by MPs will be successful.
The move not to place Learners in private Varsities will save the government lots of money from the government-sponsored students KUCCPS sends to private institutions.
According to Wanami Wamboka, Bumula MP and committee’s chairperson, funding private universities has been a pain in the neck and MPs will ensure that it comes to an end. He emphasized that they will speed up the process next week through parliament and through other legal means as a committee to ensure that funding of private institutions stops.
He noted that placing and funding learners in private Varsities has contributed to the current financial woes and human capacity in public Universities saying if stopped, this will change the matrix. Placement and Funding of 2022 Candidates to Change.
Naisula Lesuuda Samburu West MP wanted to find out if placing learners in private Varsities was a milking cow for some parties at the expense of the public institutions. Why place Learners in private Varsities yet public ones have enough capacity.
She cited Laikipia University which has a capacity of 19,000 and KUCCPS place only 6,000 learners.
Committee’s chair noted that some individuals mischievously changed a clause in the University Act which gave an opportunity to allow funding of students in private universities.
However, KUCCPS CEO Dr Mercy Wahome said KUCCPS is helpless in making decisions urging the government to pay attention to improving institutional capacity in terms of research facilities and innovation to attract more learners.
Wahome said the funding crisis is embedded in rising student enrolments without a corresponding increase in state allocation to those institutions.
MPs also say it’s difficult to track the progression of learners in private universities as a majority are said to drop out due to high fees charged in private institutions.
