Education CS Directs KUCCPS to Extend Application Deadline
Education CS Directs KUCCPS to Extend Application Deadline
Education CS Directs KUCCPS to Extend Application Deadline
The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) has received instructions from Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu to keep the portal operational for an additional week. Machogu explained in a statement released by the Ministry of Education that the deadline need to be extended to March 4, 2024, in order to provide students the time to finish their applications.
In order to give all remaining applicants an opportunity to submit their choices to universities and colleges, the Ministry of Education has instructed the Placement Agency to extend the deadline for seven more days, until March 4, 2024, according to a portion of the statement. This is in response to the extension notice issued by KUCCPS on February 25, 2022.Since then, the deadline has been extended again; on February 25, KUCCPS had already declared an extension till further notice.
The deadline was originally set for February 22 by KUCCPS following the portal’s launch, but it was ultimately revised to February 26 in response to complaints from Kenyans regarding technical issues with the website. In response, Machogu said, “The Ministry has taken note of the challenges that some students have faced in the ongoing application process,” noting the commotion.
“The Ministry of Education and other stakeholders in Government are working together to ensure that the challenges are addressed and all applicants are facilitated to apply for programmes and institutions of their choice.”
Additionally, the CS noted that the placement service expects a volume of around 171,738 applications which is 86% of the number of candidates who scored a C+ and above in the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary examination, based on the patterns shown by 2022 applicants.
Further, the Ministry of Education has explained that 60.8 per cent of the applicants who scored a C+ and above (121,391) have already applied to various courses successfully as of February 25.
He equally noted that the ministry had been monitoring the process and was working to ensure that service facilitated a fair placement exercise for all the candidates who aimed to transition to tertiary learning institutions.
In order to expedite the application transactions, the CS further stated that the ministry has assembled a technical team made up of members from pertinent agencies. The message did, however, advise applicants whose payments are being unusually delayed to use the USSD code *222# to validate their payments and/or confirm their payments in the interim. Machogu additionally gave KUCCPS instructions to distribute a comprehensive protocol for the payment confirmation prompts right away.