Saturday, August 25, 2012

Nairobi wins universities’ race for top brains in country


Nairobi wins universities’ race for top brains in country

  SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTEMAILRATING
PHOTO | FILE The Fountain of Knowledge at University of Nairobi.
PHOTO | FILE The Fountain of Knowledge at University of Nairobi.  NATION MEDIA GROUP
By SAMUEL SIRINGI ssiringi@ke.nation.co.ke
Posted  Friday, August 24  2012 at  23:30
IN SUMMARY
  • Seven of top 10 candidates in last year’s KCSE exam to study medicine as 31 of best in each of the 47 counties qualify to be picked for various degree courses
  • The University of Nairobi will admit the highest number of trainee doctors, 145. It is followed by Moi (62), Kenyatta (58) and Egerton (46). Maseno will admit 44
  • A lot is needed to develop the concept of centres of excellence in every part of the country to ensure that schools with adequate facilities come up and give their students a chance to compete with the perennial high performers
The top 10 performers in last year’s national Form Four examinations were admitted to the University of Nairobi in a move indicative of a popularity contest in the local public universities’ regular programmes.
An analysis of the admission data released this week shows that seven of the 10 got their wish – to study medicine and surgery at the premier institution.
The data was prepared by the Joint Admissions Board (JAB) – the grouping of vice-chancellors and principals of university colleges in charge of the selections – after they finalised the selection at Egerton University last week.
Based on the results, public universities have started inviting students to report to their campuses under a new programme meant to reduce the years candidates wait to join institutions of higher learning.
The “acceleration” programme aims at cutting the period from two years to one.
Job Naliaka, who topped the 2011 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) rankings, is among those joining the medicine course. The St Peter’s Seminary, Kakamega, student scored a mean grade A with an 87.13 aggregate.
Other top performers who will be joining the University of Nairobi’s medicine and surgery class include the third-ranked boy, Evans Odhiambo of Alliance High School, Sidney Oirere (fifth, Maranda High), Gacigua Ruhiu (sixth, Starehe Boys Centre) and Faith Aseta (seventh, Moi Girls - Eldoret).
Also to join the class are ninth-placed Tyson Manyala of Maranda and Buyaki Oisebe (Precious Blood - Riruta), who was ranked 10th.
Among the top 10 candidates, only Gikonyo Gitau (pharmacy), Chelagat Lonyangapuo (civil engineering) and Kariuki Murimi have been picked to study courses other than medicine.
Share This Story
  
The three were ranked second, fourth and eighth, respectively, in the KCSE results released by the then Education Minister, Prof Sam Ongeri.
More popular to students
Prof Ongeri has since been moved to Foreign Affairs and his place taken up by Mr Mutula Kilonzo.
The fact most of the students selected to study at the university is a clear pointer that it is more popular to students than the rest of the institutions. There are seven full-fledged public universities and about 31 constituent colleges in Kenya. (Read: 76,000 to miss out on public varsities places)
On Friday, JAB secretary Benjamin Waweru explained that individual universities selected students according to the demand for their courses. They could not choose whom to pick since the candidates are allowed to select and even revise their degree choices, he added.
“What it means is that it is the students who determine the competition to each degree course in any of the universities,” Mr Waweru said of the computerised selection process that has for a long time been praised for being fair and transparent.
“If all the top students selected the University of Nairobi, then it means they all selected it and met the entry cut-off point.”
Among the 47 counties, 31 candidates – or 65 per cent – who emerged first in each of the regions qualified to join the university.
Other universities sharing the cream of the counties include Jomo Kenyatta, which will admit five of the top performers, and Kenyatta, which will take four.
Kimathi University College and Moi will take two each while Maseno, South Eastern and Kenya Polytechnic have selected one each.
Since the selection is based on the choices of each student, as well as the capacity in each of the courses, instances of a university taking up more of the top performers than another despite running a similar course implies that it is more popular.
Scored all the points
Mr Waweru agreed to this, noting: “It is the students competing for a degree that can make it popular.”
For example, although Nairobi, Moi, Kenyatta, Egerton and Maseno offer medicine and surgery, many of the candidates admitted to Nairobi were better performers than those joining the rest of the universities.
The data shows 90 of the 145 candidates selected to pursue medicine at the University of Nairobi obtained maximum points from a cluster of four subjects considered crucial for the course as well as that of surgery.
Since each subject has a maximum of 12 points, it means each of the 90 candidates had the maximum 48 points on a weighted cluster that also considers the candidate’s overall mean grade.
Ideally, all the 90 candidates must have scored all the points on the maximum needed to obtain grade A of 84 points, the highest, from all the seven KCSE subjects.
In contrast, however, only three candidates each had the maximum weighted cluster points (48 points) among those picked to study medicine and surgery at Moi and Kenyatta.
Share This Story
  
None of the candidates selected to pursue medicine at Egerton and Maseno obtained the maximum cluster points, according to the data.
An analysis of the figures indicates that the first candidates picked to study medicine at Egerton and Maseno, who had a weighted cluster of 47.4 points, would have emerged in position 143 among those selected for the degree at the University of Nairobi.
That means the candidates picked by the two universities would beat only three of their peers at the University of Nairobi.
Will keep growing
Mr Waweru however explained that the popularity of medicine in the rest of the universities would keep growing since the course was introduced there recently.
He said the competitive intake at the University of Nairobi means that many students applied to join it, therefore pushing up the admission mark because of limited vacancies.
“As we go along, many students would get to learn about them, apply, and increase their competition,” he said, noting that new courses usually suffer from less competition.
New colleges attracted fewer applicants because they were initially less known.
“It has been a trend,” Mr Waweru said.
Medicine took the lion’s share of the country’s top cream as the various universities picked 25 of the 47 candidates who topped their counties to study the course.
Other degree courses that took up some of the top performers included actuarial science with six students, electrical engineering (seven) and economics and statistics (three).
Pharmacy, land resource management and aeronautical engineering selected a candidate each from those ranked position one in each county.
The University of Nairobi will admit the highest number of trainee doctors, 145. It is followed by Moi (62), Kenyatta (58) and Egerton (46). Maseno will admit 44.
Disparities among schools
The law class at the University of Nairobi will have 172 students while 59 and 48 will go to Moi and Kenyatta, respectively.
Actuarial science, a course that has sprung up in many of the newer colleges, is also quite popular, drawing many of the top performers to Kisii, Meru, Kimathi and Karatina colleges.
There are also many disparities among schools. It is evident that students from the top schools are also scooping the best courses at the expense of those with low performance.
Well endowed schools such as Starehe, Alliance High, Alliance Girls, Moi Girls - Eldoret, Limuru Girls and Maseno are sending their students mainly to science and highly competitive courses.
Share This Story
  
For instance, whereas entire regions failed to produce a medicine student for the University of Nairobi selectors, Alliance High sent 17.
The less endowed schools however have the majority of their candidates joining liberal art courses or the general science courses.
This is clear evidence that a lot is needed to develop the concept of centres of excellence in every part of the country to ensure that schools with adequate facilities come up and give their students a chance to compete with the perennial high performers.

No comments:

Post a Comment