Shock of 14,000 students yet to join university despite admission

Ogamba acknowledged that not all placed students always report.

“It was expected that 122,634 students would report but 124,364 students reported. About 2,000 more students reported than the expected trends,” Ogamba said.
He also noted that a survey is currently underway to understand where these students might be.

“Some students opt out for various reasons which include multiple admissions, choose private institutions abroad, or even get married,” said Ogamba.

This comes as students from various universities have opposed the new student-centred model calling on the government to revert to the old model.

“We are not backing down. If the funding model is to be implemented, we demand that Bands 4 and 5 be scrapped, and that students pursue their courses based on merit, as was the case previously,” said Rocha Madzao, a student’s leader at the University of Nairobi.

Butula MP Maero Oyula said wrong banding continues affecting students from vulnerable families.

“The system is failing our most vulnerable. I have a case of a disabled student who was placed in Band 1 last year. Come this year, he was moved to Band 2. There is a case where a student was put at Band 5 yet the parent is just a cobbler,” said Oyula, to which Ogamba responded:

“The assurance that we can give you is that the system is not being tampered with. What we will find out is what the cause of that error is. It could be one incident. Any particular IT system sometimes gets into hitches and can cause such a move. If it has been tampered with, it will leave some footprints and we will find out.”

Kilifi North MP Owen Baya urged the government to devise another format of banding learners for funding.

“If you have such a huge number of students failing to report to university, that means that the Means Testing Instrument (MTI) did not capture their data properly and that something is significantly wrong with it,” he said.

In response to the overwhelming concerns, the CS promised to leave the appeal portal open until December 2024 to give deferred students or those who missed out on applying last year another chance.

“We will not disenfranchise these students. We agreed to create this portal so that even those who had not applied last year, can apply and get a chance to go back to school. We have about 12,000 students who have applied,” he said, assuring that universities will work out issues around banding and ensure no student is sent home unfairly.

The conversation in Parliament revealed the complexities behind the issue. The MTI, a tool meant to categorise students based on financial need, has come under fire for its inefficiencies.