Education stakeholders to review placement criteria for Degrees, Diplomas courses » Capital News

NAIROBI, Kenya Nov 15-The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) will on Monday commence the process of reviewing the degree criteria for placement of government-sponsored students to universities.

The Chief Executive Officer for KUCCPS Agnes Wahome said the stakeholders meeting will be held at Kenyatta University to set the minimum entry requirements to universities and colleges.

The meeting will include the Universities’ vice-chancellors, their academic registrars, and representatives of the professional bodies the revised admission requirements to degree programmes as well as programme clusters.

The urgency to review the current criteria which was last reviewed in 2017 was due to complaints by students and other education stakeholders.

“This is following concerns and suggestions from training institutions and other stakeholders on the need to review the criteria,” Wahome said.

Wahome stated that an Independent Criteria Review Committee (ICRC) was established to receive, collate, and analyze the proposed changes for degree and TVET programmes.

“The committee looked into each cluster for the degree programmes and the respective minimum subject grade requirements and taking into account the requirements provided by professional or regulatory bodies and proposals from the training institutions,” reads the invitation letter.

During an engagement with journalists in Naivasha last week, Wahome stated that the current degree criteria was not balanced.

“We called on universities to give their view on the degree placement criteria because we noticed that the situation currently is unbalanced and there is quite some work to do on these issues,” Wahome said.

KUCCPS said that three years since the criteria was reviewed, a lot of changes have been made which calls for its standardization.

KUCCPS has also announced plans to engage stakeholders later this month to harmonise diplomas and certificates placement.

Among the issues the stakeholders meeting is set to iron out is the cluster requirement for a diploma in teaching. Currently, the diploma requirements for teacher training are higher than those pursuing degrees.

Applicants for a diploma in teacher training must now have a KCSE Mean Grade of C (plain) with a C grade in English, Kiswahili, Mathematics and any of the humanities and sciences subjects.

Yet, to qualify for a Bachelor of Education (Arts) programme, students are expected to have a minimum of C in English and D+ in Mathematics.

Education stakeholders have raised issues that the admission requirements for the diploma in Primary Teacher Education (DPTE) has ended up locking out many students.

The stakeholders meeting is also expected to review cluster subjects for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (Stem) programmes that often attract a high number of students who sit the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations.

As at 2020, Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery courses offered at the University of Nairobi (UoN) were the most competitive degree courses in the country.

According to the placement report, Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery offered at Kenyatta, Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology (JKUAT) and Moi universities, followed by Architecture, Dental Surgery, Civil Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering, Mechatronic Engineering, Pharmacy, Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Computer Science were also competitive.

The courses are offered at UoN, JKUAT, Technical University of Kenya, Mount Kenya University and Egerton University.