The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) has announced a new deadline for the application of courses, just a day after extending the exercise until further notice.

KUCCPS said on Monday, February 26, 2024, that the deadline had been extended to March 4, following a directive from Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu.

In a separate statement, Machogu said he had instructed the placement agency to extend the deadline by seven days to allow all the targeted candidates to submit their applications.

According to the CS, the ministry has been monitoring the application exercise since the opening of the KUCCPS portal on February 7.

He revealed that as of February 25, a total of 121,391 candidates who obtained C+ and above in the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination had applied for various courses, accounting for 60.8 per cent of the 199,695 Kenyan citizens who scored a mean grade of C+ and above.

“Based on the application behaviour of the 2022 KCSE Examination candidates who had obtained a mean grade of C+ and above, it is projected that 86% of the 2023 KCSE candidates with C+ and above (171,738) will apply for placement. The remaining applicants (14%) are expected to seek opportunities in non-participating universities, Module II Programmes or institutions of higher learning in other countries.

“This means that as of February 25, 2022, 70% of all the targeted applicants with C+ and above had applied for placement,” Machogu said.

“Therefore, further to the extension notice issued by KUCCPS on February 25, 2022, and to ensure that all the remaining applicants get a chance to submit their choices both 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.”

The initial application deadline had been set for February 22 but was later pushed to February 26 following numerous complaints of system glitches.

Yesterday, KUCCPS Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mercy Wahome acknowledged delays in processing applicants’ payments.

The KUCCPS boss assured the applicants that efforts were ongoing to stabilize the system and advised them against making double payments.

“Since payments for government services have been migrated to the eCitizen platform, the process of payment validation for the KUCCPS application is longer than before. Applicants are advised to avoid making double payments,” Wahome stated.

Machogu, on his part, also indicated that the ministry had assembled a technical team to fast-track the application transactions.

“The Ministry has taken note of the challenges that some students have faced in the ongoing application process. The Ministry of Education and other stakeholders in Government are working together to ensure that the challenges are addressed and all applicants facilitated to apply for programmes and institutions of their choice,” he stated.

“Further, a technical team – comprising representatives from relevant agencies – has been put together to fast-track the application transactions,” he added.

Machogu further advised applicants whose payments are experiencing unusual delays are encouraged to use the USSD code *222# to confirm their payments and/or trigger validation.

“A detailed procedure for the process is to be disseminated by KUCCPS immediately. The Ministry is committed to ensuring that all eligible applicants are given a chance and that no one student will be left behind in process,” the CS added.

At the same time, he urged all students who scored mean grades of between C and E to take advantage of the ongoing applications to select their desired diploma, craft certificate or artisan programmes offered in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions.

“This category of students has the advantage of walking into their preferred Ministry of Education TVET institutions to be assisted with the application process,” he said.