A report released by the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) has revealed that only four students applied for courses in Turkana University College (TUC).
According to the placement report released, TUC declared 320 vacancies and has only been able to fill the four slots.
Established as a constituent college of Masinde Muliro University in 2017, the public institution only offers five study programmes.
Three of the applicants wished to pursue a Bachelor of Education degree while the fourth applied for a degree in Social Work.
[caption caption="File image of students protesting at the Turkana University College"]
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The three other programmes offered at the institution are Bachelor of Business Management, Bachelor of Environmental Science and Bachelor of Development Studies.
According to the rules governing Kenyan universities, a degree programme must attain a minimum threshold of at least half of the available slots to secure government funding.
The TUC situation was replicated in a number of other tertiary level institutions that did not manage to get at least 50% applications to fill the available slots, raising questions on their viability.
Other institutions are; University of Kabianga with 778 applications out of 2,447, University of Embu with 1,052 out of 2,570, South Eastern Kenya University had 949 applicants out of 2,705 slots, Pwani University 975 out of 2,315, Laikipia University 725 out of 1,825 and Kisii University 1,738 out of 4,200 available slots.
Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology (JKUAT) emerged as the university with the highest number of placements in the 2018 intake process with 4,866 successful applicants out of its declared 5,868 vacant slots.
Kenyatta University (KU) and the University of Nairobi (UoN) will take in 4,667 and 4,540 students respectively which still falls below the number of declared vacant positions.
[caption caption="Education CS Amina Mohamed receives the 2018 university placement report"]
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