For the first time in the history of education in the country, the number of students achieving university entry grades has crossed the 200,000 mark. This puts significant pressure on higher education funding as the state, through the Ministry of Education, struggles with putting together significant capitation funds for learning institutions across the country.
The 201,133 students who met the minimum university entry qualification in the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) is a 16% improvement on the 173,345 qualified students last year. As more students achieve a C+ and above university entry grade, there will be even more pressure on higher education funding as stakeholders and partners work round the clock to improve the literacy levels in the country.
During the release of the KCSE Results on 8th January 2023, Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu attributed the high crossover into the C+ cut-off requirement to the reduction in the number of compulsory subjects in the KCSE 2023 grading system.
“The number of candidates who attained the minimum university qualification this year was 201,133, which was 22.27 percent compared to 173,345 which was 19.62 percent in the year 2022. This is as a result of the application of the new grading system that reduced the number of compulsory subjects required to compute the mean grade,” said Mr Machogu.
One of the Kenya Kwanza government’s priorities is to streamline funding to learning institutions. To deal with the pressure of higher education funding, the state introduced a new model of capitation for universities and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (Tvet). This means that funding will be apportioned on a needs basis as opposed to uniformed umbrella funding that has been in place since the introduction of free primary education and partial university funding by the late president Mwai Kibaki.
In May last year, President William Ruto announced that capitation to schools and scholarships to learners would be categorized for effectiveness. He said those subject to funding will be categorized according to the vulnerability and various tiers of needs assessment.
in the KCSE 2023 exams, the number of students who scored straight As rose by 70 from 1,146 in 2022 to 1,216. This is a testament to the increasing ability of schools across the country to produce results.
National schools contributed the largest chunk of the best scorers, producing 889 students with grade A. Extra county schools were a distant second with 172 students while private schools produced 143 students with straight As. Sub-county schools and county schools had 7 As each.
There was a 2.1% increase in the number of students that sat for the exam from 881,416 in 2022 to 899,453 learners in 2023.
Notably the number of girls who scored A, A- and B+ increased 30.5 percent to hit 10,881 up from 8,337 in 2022, while the growth in the number of male candidates in the same category was at a sluggish 5.2 percent to 15,667 up from 14,898.
Mr Machogu further added that only 12 of the 30 subjects in which learners were tested recorded improvements as compared to 2022.
“Female candidates recorded better mean score performance than male candidates in five subjects that include the English Language, Kiswahili, CRE, Home Science and Art & Design. Male candidates recorded better mean score performance than female candidates in 10 subjects, this being Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, General Science, History & Government, Geography, Agriculture, Computer Studies and Business Studies,” said Mr Machogu.
With the increasing number of students sitting exams and those attaining the required entry grades, further pressure will be on higher education funding.
Over the years, higher education funding has been dwindling at par with student numbers. This has been partly down to the scrapping of parallel programs which have played a huge role in the slashing of higher education funding. The scrapping of parallel programs indeed compelled the government to develop a new funding model to remedy the total collapse of public universities as varsities were benefitting a lot from parallel program funds.
