The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) has challenged technical training institutions to develop programmes that respond to the current needs of the population.
KUCCPS Chief Executive Officer Dr. Agnes Mercy Wahome noted that many programmes offered in the institutions were not up to date with the current trends.
Dr Wahome, who spoke on Friday at a TVET Consultative Forum organised by the Higher Education Loans Board in Naivasha, also expressed concern with the low number of students applying for programmes offered in the Ministry of Education’s TVET institutions.
Most of the students who qualified for TVET programmes had not applied by the time the KUCCPS application portal closed on March 4, 2024, she told participants.
“The system will open again in about a week or two to mop up more applicants.”
Candidates who scored E in the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination were the most affected as a majority of them had not applied for placement, according to the KUCCPS CEO.
Dr Wahome further noted that the training institutions have enough capacity to absorb all the 688,591 Kenyan citizen students who attained mean grades between C and E in the KCSE examination.
The TVET institutions provided 790,479 admission slots for this year’s student placement, in comparison with the 688,591 eligible students.
The theme of the forum was: “Leaving No Student Behind: Aligning TVET Student Funding amidst Education Sector Reforms for Sustainability.”
