Questions/Answers

The Placement Service has developed an online placement system that is accessible to stakeholders countrywide. Students, school principals and universities/colleges submit information to the system online. Through dedicated portals, universities/colleges update available courses and their capacities; principals submit students’ course choices; while the students log in to revise the choices. The system has automated the placement process, enhancing efficiency and promoting access to higher education. The system has addressed the following challenges: 1. Distrust of the system’s integrity: This was cured by opening it up to scrutiny and audit as well as sharing results of each placement cycle with the public. 2. End user challenges: A few end users struggled to use the system, so the Placement Service upgraded the system and made it more user friendly. This was also addressed by setting up support centres in the counties as well as providing user manuals. 3. Perception of non-infallibility: There was the perception that the placement process could be influenced to afford some applicants undue advantage over others. Due to the automation, the system places students based on strict criteria of merit and listed choices. 4. Mismatch of student qualification vs. choices: Initially, some students would choose programmes they were unqualified for, hence lose out on others for which they were qualified. However, the online system has courses and their minimum requirements (which can be viewed at www.students.kuccps.net/programmes). Further, it only allows students to apply for courses they qualify for. This initiative promotes the achievement of SDG No. 4 because it presents fair and balanced access to affordable university education and technical and vocational training for Kenyan youths. Further, it promotes affirmative action by eliminating barriers to higher education and giving vulnerable/disadvantaged students an equitable platform for selection to courses of their choice.

Technical and Vocational Training: Kenya’s Vision 2030 has placed special demands on the TVET sector as one of the leading engines that the economy must rely on to produce adequate levels of middle level professionals that will be needed to drive the economy. KUCCPS has minimized cost of marketing and placement to TVET programmes by availing one platform that has institutions and their programmes. During processing of placement to these institutions, KUCCPS applies a placement criteria that upholds equity and balanced access to education and training, while promoting affirmative action and other strategies. One Stop Resource Centre for Universities and Colleges in Kenya: KUCCPS through its online system is a one stop resource centre, collecting information on available programmes, minimum entry requirements and other activities in the institutions, and availing this information. Enhanced access to Higher Education: KUCCPS has brought on board private universities, which has increased capacities available for degree, diploma and certificates. Consequently, the number of students accessing Government Sponsorship has also increased. Career Guidance: Through its outreach activities, KUCCPS develops and implements career guidance programmes for students. The programmes consider course requirements, academic performance and individual aptitudes, thus improving the quality of human resource in Kenya.

The online system was developed to replace the costly manual application process, thereby reducing application-related costs, increased accuracy and efficiency. This kind of system has not been used in the region before. Other African countries including Malawi and Uganda have sent teams for benchmarking with KUCCPS. KUCCPS promotes affirmative action by eliminating barriers to higher education and giving vulnerable/disadvantaged students an equitable platform for selection to courses of their choice. KUCCPS has brought on board private universities, which has increased capacities available for degree, diploma and certificates. Consequently, the number of needy students who would have otherwise not continued with their education have access to Government Sponsorship. KUCCPS promotes transparency and accountability by opening up its systems to scrutiny and audit as well as availing results of each placement cycle to the public. The system is also fully automated and this ensures students are placed based on strict criteria of merit and listed choices. KUCCPS also organises national stakeholder forums to discuss its activities as well as give them access credentials and train them on how to use the system. Additionally, KUCCPS prepares status reports with information pertaining to every cycle which is readily available to the public.

Kenya’s Vision 2030 has placed special demands on the TVET sector as one of the leading engines that the economy must rely on to produce adequate levels of middle level professionals that will be needed to drive the economy. Through the Online Placement System, the Placement Service seeks to provide fair and balanced access to university education and technical and vocational training. It allows all applicants to compete for higher education opportunities on the same platform using a uniform criteria, while also giving concessions to students from marginalised regions, those with disabilities and on the basis of gender affirmative action. Consequently, this promotes equal access to affordable and quality education which in turn increases the technical and vocational skills of thousands of youths enabling them to access employment.

KUCCPS is a public institution responsible for the co-ordination of placement of government sponsored students to colleges and universities as well as the development of career programmes amongst other functions. KUCCPS’ has an online placement system and career outreach programme serving the whole country. Our initiative is automated and has enhanced the efficiency of placement of students as well as promoted access to higher education. Through the outreach activities, KUCCPS develops and implements career guidance programmes for students. These programmes consider course requirements, academic performance and individual aptitudes, thus improving the quality of human resource in Kenya.

KUCCPS is responsible for the coordination of government sponsored students into universities and colleges, while at the same time ensuring equal access for all, to quality, affordable, higher education. Our initiative targets players in the education sector, specifically students. It has made a positive impact on this particular demographic because access to higher education has been made easier by making it affordable to apply for courses, since a significant amount of the tuition fees is borne by the government. Further, our system makes the whole application process for students affordable, efficient and accurate. Our system allows students from vulnerable or marginalised groups to access information, be considered for placement and benefit from our career outreach programmes. The future is bright because more students have a chance to continue their education, empower their families and ultimately grow the economy.

The KUCCPS has had the privilege of hosting a team from Malawi and Uganda which came for benchmarking exercise on how the system works. Our CEO has It has revolutionalised how students access government sponsorship into universities and colleges. Our interactive system allows stakeholders to input data online (students’ KCSE results, available degree and diploma courses and capacities, students’ choices). Students are able to access the system using their credentials and revise their choices. The selection is simulated through the placement data base, and students are able to view the outcome of their placement online through their portal. This has eliminated manual selection and increased accuracy and efficiency.

The concept of an online placement system is an improvement on the centralised placement system already in use in some jurisdictions. We have had delegations from other African countries (Malawi & Uganda) benchmark with us to learn more about the online placement system.

We have used many resources to implement this initiative. To ensure the security of our system, we purchased the latest servers to enhance the security and increased the efficiency of the system. We also employed additional staff and they were taken through trainings on how to use the system. Additionally, a Validation Committee was formed to validate the system. All these came together to make the system what it is today.

نعم

KUCCPS’ online placement system is adaptable to other contexts; regional countries are benchmarking their own student placement coordination with KUCCPS’ system. Within the past two years, Malawi and Uganda have sent delegations to KUCCPS on benchmarking missions to study how they can implement a similar system in their respective countries. In October 2017, KUCCPS Chief Executive Officer was invited to make a presentation on ‘Centralized placement of candidates into institutions of Higher Learning/ synchronizing tertiary education funding with placement – Case of Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service Board’. At the 2017 Annual Conference and General Meeting of the Association of African Higher Education Financing Agencies (AAHEFA) in Maseru, Lesotho. AAHEFA highly regards KUCCPS placement coordination system and would wish to see it replicated in other African countries.

This system is sustainable in the long run due to its efficiency in service delivery and costs. It is environmentally friendly, for example, it has eliminated paperwork in comparison with the past manual processing of applications. Annually, KUCCPS processes close to 90,000 placements and the numbers are envisaged to grow as the Government increases its investment in TVET programmes with the intention of increasing enrolments. Also, the placement processing outcome is communicated via text messaging to students and their parents/guardians. On socio-economic: This initiative promotes a fair and balanced access to affordable university education and technical and vocational training for Kenyan youths. It also promotes affirmative action by eliminating barriers to higher education and giving vulnerable, persons with disabilities and disadvantaged students from historically marginalised regions an equitable platform for selection to courses of their choice.

KUCCPS is an institution established under an Act of Parliament to play a key role in the education sector and the realization of vision 2030 by Kenya. Therefore, its perpetual existence is almost guaranteed. The placement system is cloud-based and is not constrained by the limits of time and space. Further, being an in-house developed system, it does not attract licensing fees or other charges save for the normal Internet charges, storage and personnel requirements. Other costs and risks experienced during the manual system have been completely eliminated therefore, it can only be improved and not discontinued. Its efficiency in application can be replicated in other sectors and levels of public service.

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While the infrastructure of the online placement system was internally developed by the Placement Service, its functionalities were designed based on the needs of all stakeholders, i.e. students, universities, colleges and professional/regulatory bodies. The stakeholders were invited to forums where they agreed on the placement criteria, which were then fed into the data base that supports the online placement system. Further, universities and colleges have been empowered to access the database through a login function to enable them update information on their courses and capacities from time to time. This is done by the respective academic registrars or deans, who have been trained on how to access the system through a dedicated portal (institutions.kuccps.net). School principals are also able to access the database through schools.kuccps.net and upload the career choices made by students when they are in their final year of study, while after siting the KCSE examination, the students are able to login into the system through their portal (students.kuccps.net) and revise/update their choices before the selection is done. These stakeholders are trained from time to time and their needs incorporated during stakeholder forums, school career forums, and visits to institutions or visits by deans / registrars at the Placement Service. At the end of placement, all stakeholders are called into a meeting to validate the placement report containing information on how the students were allocated courses, among other details. The institutions, including other statutory bodies, are then provided with data resulting from the process to enable them to further their mandates. For instance, universities and colleges are provided with lists of the students placed in their programmes; while the Higher Education Loans Board is provided with the details of the placed students for the allocation of Government loans/bursaries.

In the implementation of the initiative, some key lessons have been learnt. They relate to access to the system and public awareness. Regarding ease of access, it has been noted that while the system can be accessed by any applicant in any part of Kenya through the Internet, there are areas that have low Internet penetration. Therefore, the Placement Service is now developing a mobile application that will enable users access the system even while offline. Further, the system is continually upgraded to improve efficiency and user experience. Since the system is pretty a new thing, there is a considerable portion of the public that is yet to fully understand the concept of automation of student placement, hence believe that they must physically visit the Placement Service offices for assistance. The Placement Service has therefore designed a public outreach programme to sensitise students and their parents/guardians on the placement process. We also plan to develop a career book that will contain information about different courses, where they are offered, the requirements and career prospects. It will be available to the public and updated regularly.