The stage is now set for technical training institutions to start admitting students for various courses after the government rolled out a roadmap on the admission process.

Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) has issued guidelines outlining the timelines and procedures for the new cohort of students to be admitted.

The road map requires the Tvet colleges to first update their training programmes and capacities before getting validation for new admissions scheduled for early next year.

Guidelines state that the training centres have been instructed to log in to the KUCCPS portal and indicate the courses they intend to offer for candidates to apply, including the number of students they require in each of the training programmes.

In the Tvet placement processing schedule 2021/2022 cycle, the technical colleges have until October 18 to submit their programmes to KUCCPS to enable it conduct the validation process.

The process shall then proceed to internal validation upon the institutions listing and forwarding their preferred training courses and anticipated enrolment for each case.

Upon  completion of the validation process by November 11, the information shall be made public through advertisements, thus giving notification on the application dates.

KUCCPS shall by November 15 open applications for second Tvet continuous placement, where students will be invited to submit applications for placement in various technical colleges for government sponsorship.

Industrial skills

The exercise shall culminate in the release of the continuous placement report and announcement of successful applicants set for December 14.

A total of 173 public Tvet institutions are targeted by  KUCCPS in the process. Some 362 Tvet programmes were available in the last placement cycle.

The government has been making a deliberate push to have more students join the Tvet colleges to promote production of industrial skills and meet the needs of the job market.

Data from the last placement report released on August 17 indicates that in the 2020 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE), 6,617 (4.64 per cent) students who attained grade C+ and above chose Technical and Vocational Education Training (Tvet) courses up from 2,632 in 2019.

Generally, there was a rise in this year’s placement to Tvet institutions representing 54.5 per cent from 2019 where 88,339 students were placed.

Speaking during the release of 2020 candidates placement report on August 17, Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha lauded the increase, terming it a positive gesture towards embracing  Tvet programmes.

Magoha noted that the increase in Tvets enrolment showed that attitudes towards Tvet courses were changing.