Platform equips students with tools and guidance to choose courses

Many parents already know what they want their children to become even before they are born – engineer, doctor, lawyer, pilot, and other ‘top’ professions. As a result, the children’s opinion or choice is utterly ignored.

Thereafter, the constant pressure to live up to the parents’ expectations takes a toll on the child’s mental health. Burdened with the pressure to excel in fields in which one may have no interest inevitably puts a lid on the true potential of the child.

After years of observing how students and parents continuously seek to find the right course, a group of professionals from various fields decided to create a platform that would educate young people about the options that are available for them and the different pathways they can take to achieve their career goals in life. This is how Craydel.com came about.

Manish Sardana, the CEO of Craydel Kenya, explains that they are a team of entrepreneurs, career guidance experts, counsellors and technologists who are collectively dedicated to the mission to transform how higher education is accessed across Sub-Saharan Africa.

“While on one hand the higher education decisions of the youth are guided by parental and societal biases, on the other hand, we have a system where the brokers of higher education, in whose hands vulnerable children and parents rest life-altering higher education decisions, are incentivised to push universities where their financial benefits are tied,” he told Higher Education.

World-class technology

“The system is broken and flawed in a myriad of ways but it can be fixed. It can be fixed with world-class technology, knowledge IP, capital and courage. We will create the largest army of trained career counsellors and empower them with technology and exhaustively researched career resources to guide the youth in designing their destiny.”

Access, or a lack thereof, to university education, is a long-running concern among many students who have completed their higher education, as well as their parents.

The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) CEO Agnes Wahome in June expounded more on the concerns about most top KCSE candidates missing out on their preferred courses because the selection criteria are based on a ranking system that grades candidates from top to bottom.

The KUCCPS boss added that the system places candidates to the specified courses depending on the university course and the institution selected.

At Craydel, Mr Sardana said they handpick the largest selection of top universities and colleges across Africa and the world. The system, which went live in June, has so far attracted over 50 local and international universities and is still assembling the best industry experts, masters of their crafts, to create courses that deliver real-life skills to drive continuous development and growth of students and working professionals.

Postgraduate degrees  

They offer a single platform to apply online to top undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and diploma courses and get scholarships at top colleges and universities in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, US, UK, Canada and Switzerland. Their platform makes it easy for students to compare and select the best courses that fit their budget and needs with admission counsellors helping them to make decisions and in getting admissions.

“It is our hope and aspiration that students and parents alike can make more informed decisions conveniently and not miss out on opportunities available to them. We want students to be able to study courses that are aligned with their interests and ultimately be who they want to be in life,” Sardana added.

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