Relief for students as Kuccps, e-Citizen fix portal woes
KUCCPS Chief Executive Officer Agnes Mercy Wahome.
What you need to know:
- Portal fixing has resulted in a surge of applications before the Monday, March 4 2024 deadline.
- Since the portal opened on February 7, 2024, students have been struggling to complete their applications.
The logistical challenges that have delayed students’ applications for courses on the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (Kuccps) portal have been fixed, resulting in a surge of applications before the Monday, March 4 2024 deadline.
Since the portal opened on February 7, 2024, students have been struggling to complete their applications which for the first has been linked to the e-Citizen payment platform. The delay has forced the deadline to be extended twice to allow more eligible students to apply.
In a joint statement on Friday, the CEO of Kuccps Agnes Mercy Wahome, and the director-general of eCitizen Services, Isaac Ochieng said that 22,307 students had successfully submitted their applications in 24 hours, the highest number since the process began.
“By close of business today (March 1, 2024), 144,102 (72.2 per cent) of the 199,695 students who attained a mean grade of C+ and above in the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination had applied.
Based on the application behaviour of the 2022 KCSE candidates, Kuccps targets 173,178 (86 per cent) of the students with C+ above to apply for placement this year,” reads the statement.
Students were reported to have been staying up late hoping to submit their applications when there was less traffic on the portal. The latest extension of the deadline was announced by Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu on Monday.
“We assure applicants, parents, and the public in general that the application process is smooth and all eligible persons should apply,” the statement read.
Under the new application format, the cost of all programmes offered in all the universities has been displayed on the portal to enable the students and their families to make decisions on their choices.
The processing of applications for placement will start once the targeted number of applicants has submitted their course choices.
After the first placement, exercise, there will be two revision opportunities for students who will not have applied, or those who will not have secured their selected courses, to reapply.
When Kuccps completes the placement process, it will open doors for students to apply for funding through the Universities Fund which is in charge of scholarships, and the Higher Education Loans Board which is in charge of student loans. All these are allocated based on the individual needs of the students.
Students who scored mean grades of between C and E are eligible to apply for diplomas, craft certificates, or artisan programmes in public technical and vocational education and training institutions.
