Kirinyaga University Vice-Chancellor Prof Mary Ndung’u has said universities have enough capacity to accommodate the 125,746 candidates who scored a mean grade of C+ (plus) in this year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam.

She said the over 125,000 students will secure a place in higher learning institutions, which currently have a capacity of about 600,000 learners.

“Over the years, the government has invested heavily in capacity and infrastructure, including the bed capacity, thus there is more than enough space in different universities for all students who attained C plus and above,” Ndung’u said yesterday.

Before placement of students, universities are required to declare their capacity and recently, many institutions have been struggling to fill up available spaces.

The Commission for University Education (CUE) puts the number of universities in Kenya at 74, out of which 31 are public chartered, six are public constituent colleges, 18 are privately chartered, five are private constituent colleges and another 14 are institutions with letters of an interim authority.

At the same time, candidates who did not qualify to join universities have been urged to apply for admission to Technical and Vocational Education and Training  (Tvet) institutions.

Tvet Principal Secretary Dr Kevit Desai asked the youth to join the now-vibrant sector, saying implementation of the Competency-Based Education Training (Cbet) curriculum is going a long way in preparing learners for the competitive job market.

 He said students should take advantage of Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) funding for Tvet trainees, and other schemes meant to make higher learning affordable.