The number of candidates who have qualified for university admission in the 2024 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination has increased by a 22 percent, turning the heat on institutions of higher learning, which are already dogged by financial challenges to keep education programmes running.
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba announced on Thursday that the number of students who scored above C+, the minimum grade required for university admission, rose to 246,391 from 201,133 last year.
This increase in qualified candidates follows a historic achievement in 2022 when the number surpassed 200,000 for the first time.
Mr Ogamba attributed the improved performance to the new grading system introduced in 2023, which only takes five subjects into account.
This system takes the top three marks in each subject, in addition to the mandatory inclusion of marks in mathematics and the highest-scoring language between English and Kiswahili.
"As with the 2023 KCSE, the 2024 results have been graded using the revised system, which takes into account mathematics and the highest-scoring language from among three options - English, Kiswahili, and Kenya Sign Language - as well as the best scores in five subjects," Mr Ogamba announced.
While this growth signals a positive trend in educational attainment, it also raises concerns about the capacity of public universities to meet the growing demand for higher education.
Public universities are already facing challenges such as limited resources and inadequate funding, which have placed some of the top institutions in a vulnerable position, putting even more pressure on them to expand their capacity.
In 2024, the government disbursed Sh8 billion for university loans and scholarships for the first-year students currently being admitted in public universities under the new student-centred university funding model.
Out of the Sh8 billion, some Sh5.2 billion had been disbursed to the Higher Education Loans Board toward tuition and loans for students joining public universities across the country. The remaining Sh2.8 billion was allocated to the Universities Fund for scholarships.
This year's KCSE results show that 1,693 candidates scored an A, up from 1,216 last year, while 7,743 candidates scored an A-, setting the stage for competition for top courses such as medicine, pharmacy, engineering, IT, and architecture, which are in high demand in the job market.
The results, released yesterday, show that some 605,774 students achieved a pass grade of D+ and above, an increase from 526,222 the previous year.
Meanwhile, 476,889 students scored a grade of C- and are expected to enroll in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) programmes across the country.
In recent years, enrolment in public universities has declined due to several factors, including funding challenges.
In 2022, data from the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) showed a decline in university enrolment from 452,089 to 448,482, while TVET enrolment increased from 217,440 to 265,095.
The 2023 TVET records show a total of 367,925 students, of which 54.6 percent (200,893) were males and 45.4 percent (167,032) were females.
Similarly, the KUCCPS 2023-24 enrolment record shows a greater number of students opting for TVET programmes rather than university degrees, which has been the trend in previous years.
The data also shows that the majority of students who entered TVET in 2024 were women, according to the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Authority.
