The government has assured first-year students preparing to join various higher learning institutions next week that they will stay put due to school fees.

Appearing before the National Assembly Education Committee, Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu allayed fears that students will fail to join universities and TVETs as the government is yet to disburse the government scholarship and loans.

He said his Ministry will write a circular to all public and private universities to admit students with admission letters.

“Treasury is giving us funds for 2nd,3rd and fourth years which will be disbursed to universities as we are concluding the process of categorization for the 1st year students. We have made it clear to our public and private university no to turn away students while we are doing the processing funding,” he said.

Legislators had raised concerns that the students will be turned away from joining universities and TVETs since the categorization and disbursement of scholarships and loans had yet to be completed.

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Due to a lack of public awareness and participation, MPs had called on the administration to delay the new university funding formula at least for students enrolling in institutions in September.

Only 30% of applicants for government financing to enroll in universities and TVETs have so far been successful, with technical difficulties preventing prompt applications.

To expedite the application before the deadline of September 7th, the Ministry of Education has moved to request assistance from the Ministries of Interior and Administration.

Out of the 285,000 students registered in universities and TVETs as of Thursday, 75,272 had submitted their applications successfully.

“We have been able to analyze this because we have had some sort of problem. The system has some kind of jam such that we apply and the system is not able to absorb. The validation process has also had challenges,” Machogu said.

According to Machogu, depending on how many applications are submitted successfully by the deadline, the government may decide to extend the application deadline.

He stressed that his docket would ensure that no student was turned away from government assistance due to technicalities, reiterating the government's commitment to helping students in higher education, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“We will not like to lock out any person, and if you have an application you can just report in university and be guided on how to apply, we will be quite flexible because as you can see the numbers are still low,” he said.

The funding model only applies to KCSE 2022 candidates who must apply on the Higher Education Financing (HEF) portal: www.hef.co.ke.

Students will be awarded scholarships, loans, and bursaries based on a Means Testing Instrument (MTI) methodology that intends to determine their level of need.