Public universities to enrol 24,000 students this year

By BENJAMIN MUINDI bmuindi@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Thursday, August 19 2010 at 22:30
In Summary

Those to join the institutions

124,300: The students to join the universities under government sponsorship.
220,073: The number that joined last year
363: The minimum point that male candidates should score to join the universities
461: The minimum points for female candidates

Public universities will admit 4,000 more government sponsored students to cap this year’s intake at 24,300.

The Joint Admissions Board (JAB), charged with the selection of the students for the country’s seven public universities, set the minimum grade in last year’s Form Four exam as B of 63 points.

In its meeting held on Thursday at Kenyatta University (KU) and attended by all vice chancellors, Jab also lowered the points to B of 61 for the female candidates. KU Vice-Chancellor Prof Olive Mugenda chaired the board.

The maximum a candidate needs to score the best A mean grade is 84 points. A total of 20,073 students who sat for the fourth form examinations in 2008 joined the universities at various dates starting May this year.

They scored mean grades of B plain of 65 points and above. Female students and those from arid areas were admitted with two points less under the affirmative action policy.

In that admission, KU had for the first time overtaken the University of Nairobi (UoN) by admitting the largest number of regular students.

KU then admitted one fifth (or 4,034 students) beating UoN that has traditionally taken the lion’s share of first year students.

Jab on Thursday also allowed the qualified students an opportunity to revise their degree choices starting next month both at their provincial centres and the UoN.

Selection to various degree programmes is guided by the grade a candidate scored against the number of slots available in the universities.

From the class of 2009, some 81,048 candidates scored the minimum C+ grade required for admission to a public university.

This effectively means that about 57,000 students will not have a chance to get government sponsorship to join the universities.

This is despite the fact that Jab has been increasing the intake for the last three years.