The recently concluded placement exercise conducted by the Kenya University Colleges Central Placement Services (KUCCPS) has revealed that 16,310 students who sat for the 2021 KCSE and qualified for degrees did not apply for university slots.

According to Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha, the students opted to seek other opportunities that he did not mention, but revealed that among them were those students who opted to pursue further studies in institutions abroad.

“I have also noted that 16,310 candidates who qualified for degree programmes in the 2021 KCSE examination did not submit applications and may have opted to pursue other opportunities including opting to study abroad,” he stated at the release of the 2021 KCSE Universities and Colleges Student Placement results at Eastleigh High School on Saturday, June 25.

Magoha said that a total of 250,052 students submitted their applications for placement to universities, TVET institutions and Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs) this year.

Out of the 250,052 students, KUCCPS placed 144,466 who qualified for university slots and another 5,278 were placed to TVET institutions by choice.

Magoha highlighted that 90 per cent of last year's KCSE candidates who attained a mean grade of C + and above applied and were competitively placed, with 85 per cent of them getting into degree programmes and 5 per cent taking up courses in TVET Institutions.

Additionally, more female students than male were placed in universities, as in the 85 percent, 67,237 are female and 56,726 are male.

The CS also pointed out that KUCCPS had for the first time placed applicants for admission to public diploma primary teacher training colleges.

Those placed comprised of 1,216 female and 322 male students placed in the Diploma in Primary Teacher Education and Diploma in Early Childhood Teacher Education, and 293 students (129 male, 164 female) to three colleges offering Diploma in Secondary Teacher Education.

He stated that this tranche would be trained in the delivery of the Competency Based Curriculum.