Universities have launched the annual fight for First Years only one week after the central placement agency KUCCPS opened the transfers window.
The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) opened its portal for the annual transfers two weeks after it released the admission results, ending a protracted exercise that starts from school followed by revision or layers of review.
Two universities have reached out to the next cohort of students, telling them to take up limited transfer chances while promising a fast processing of their applications.
Kenyatta University (KU), one of the top Kenyan universities that got 5,659 students this year, has bought a space in newspapers, telling the candidates there are “limited vacant slots” in various programmes.
KU “encouraged” the next group of Freshers to visit the KUCCPS portal or the university’s admissions office for guidance and information on the transfers that will run for two months.
Western Kenya-based Kibabii University that got 1,794 students in the placement agency’s final tally, is promising candidates that the “prestigious student-centred” university will “promptly process” their transfer requests.
At 5,659 students, KU that runs 88 degree programmes filled 97.9 percent of its approved slots of 5,783 learners. This means it has less than 200 slots to fill in the transfers, assuming it does not lose any of its candidates to other universities.
Kibabii that offers 20 programmes has more headroom since it filled only 79.4 percent of its KUCCPS-approved 2,260 vacancies.
More than 125,000 students who scored C+ (plus) and above were admitted to various universities while more than 88,000 were place to technical colleges for diploma courses.
More universities are expected to join the fray in the war for students since the transfer that closes on August 15 ahead of admissions period that traditionally start in September and October. It is not known how the coronavirus-closure of the learning institutions will impact the admissions calendar.
Before the era of central placement, course transfers happened at universities after First Years reported, an internal process that allowed students to migrate to their dream professions since it was possible to lower the entry grade by a point or two.
The transfer window offers a tight room for lucky applicants to get admitted to some of the prestigious courses like medicine, pharmacy, engineering, architecture, and law.
Private universities that signed a pact with the government to offer public programmes did well in the placement, revealing their popularity tied to courses, population, facilities, and jobs prospects.
Daystar, KCA, Riara, and Kabarak are some of the private institutions that got their vacancies taken up and exceeded. Pioneer International University, another private institution, had its programmes taken up to 96.4 percent.
The University of Nairobi was filled to 94.8 percent, Technical University of Kenya got 100.3 percent, its sister in Mombasa — TUM — got filled to 93.1 percent while Multimedia University, a government school known for communications technology, was at 98.2 percent while Moi’s stood at 97.6 percent.
Public and private universities that got less than 75 percent placement are Turkana University College at 58.4 percent, Umma (70.1), University of Kabianga (72.1), and University of Eldoret at 74.5 percent.
(aplainteam@gmail.com)
