Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) Chief Executive Agnes Wahome revealed that Pangani Girls High School student's course choices landed her a diploma class at a Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institution.
The unidentified student, who scored an A- in the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE), lamented that she had selected strong science choices at the country's leading universities in line with her 40-point cluster.
She expressed a desire to pursue a course in Dentistry and made the high in demand course her first and second choice. Third, she selected Medicine and rounded her top four choices with Nursing at the University of Nairobi.
Upon checking the placement results, however, the student had been placed at the Kiambu Institute of Science and Technology to pursue a diploma course in Nutrition.
"I was shocked because I had been called to Kiambu Institute to pursue a diploma in Nutrition and Dietetics and I had gotten an A- and hoped to go to a nice university with a good course.
"When they open the portal for the third revision, the courses that will be there will not be marketable for the grade I got. The courses I applied for will already be taken. I am disappointed because I worked hard to get an A-," she lamented.
Wahome noted that whereas the candidate qualified for some course titles she selected in line with her high grades, the choice of the universities she wished to pursue the courses in demanded higher cut-off points.
For instance, there were only 50 slots for Dentistry and with a high demand, only students who scored straight As were placed in the institution. The student's third choice, Medicine, was also too competitive and attracted a higher cut-off mark.
Her fourth choice, Nursing, which she could have pursued at a different university, required 43 cut-off points at the University of Nairobi (UoN) which was her final choice.
"The student who made the choice to do Dentistry with an A-, unfortunately, we have less than 50 capacities for the course. Students who got dentistry had straight As with a cluster weight of 43 yet this student had 40," Wahome explained.
"Clearly, with the choice of dentistry in two institutions, Medicine as her third choice and Nursing at UoN as her fourth choice, there was no way she could have made it in all these. Her next choices were in Diploma. She had a first choice in Nutrition at Kiambu Institute so it automatically takes you there."
She added that KUCCPS gives priority to the first choices made by students. If a person misses that, the system then goes to the second choice then and finally the fourth consequently.
"If you had made a choice in Diploma while you qualify for degree and you miss all your four choices, the system then takes you to your diploma choice," she added.
Wahome, therefore, advised the student to take advantage of the third revision to select the course of her choice. The portal will be reopened in a week's time.
KUCCPS noted that 285,167 students made applications for placement in 69 universities, 210 TVET institutions and three Secondary Teacher Training Colleges.
Shockingly, 23,125 who qualified for degree programmes did not make applications while 136,592 did not apply for diploma courses. There are 483, 457 vacant spaces across universities and TVETs.
