Admissions board extends control to private institutions

The Joint Admissions Board has been disbanded under a new law awaiting presidential assent, to be replaced by the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service. While the board was charged with the admission of government-sponsored students to seven public universities and their constituent colleges, the new body will also admit students to private institutions, writes Benjamin Muindi for The Nation.

It will also admit students to public universities through the self-sponsored programme, usually referred to as the parallel degree programme. Previously, the board admitted students on the basis of bed-capacity, with little regard to the degree choices they wished to pursue. And students from well-off families have taken advantage of this inadequacy to seek admission to public universities directly through the self-sponsored programme.

The effect was that these students chose the courses they wished to pursue at the expense of thousands from humble backgrounds who were thrown into courses they did not even apply to study.
Full report on The Nation site