Members of Parliament have put universities on the spot over unpaid placement fees running into hundreds of millions of shillings owed to the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service, threatening to disrupt the agency’s operations.
Appearing before the National Assembly’s Education Committee, KUCCPS chief executive Dr Mercy Wahome told legislators that institutions owe the agency roughly Sh500 million in unremitted placement fees, a one-off charge of Sh1,500 levied per student successfully placed in a university or college. She said some institutions have disputed the figures, claiming certain students listed as placed never actually enrolled, even as those same institutions report higher enrolment numbers when applying for government capitation and other funding.
Committee chairman Julius Melly, the Tinderet MP, pressed KUCCPS officials to name the defaulting institutions, questioning why universities that had benefited from the placement service would fail to settle what he described as a straightforward obligation. “Which universities owe you and how much? You have placed students so why do they owe you?” he posed to the KUCCPS team.
Baringo North MP Joseph Makilap proposed a more automatic system in which the Sh1,500 fee would be deducted or remitted as soon as a student reports and enrols at their placed institution, arguing that the current arrangement leaves too much room for disputes and delayed payment.
Dr Wahome told the committee that KUCCPS has this year introduced tighter measures to compel compliance, including withholding placement lists from universities until they commit to clearing outstanding balances. The agency has faced mounting financial pressure in recent years as it works to place a growing number of students under the new university funding model, even as its own revenue collection from institutions lags behind.
The committee is expected to demand a full list of defaulting universities and a clear repayment plan, with MPs warning that continued non-payment could hamper KUCCPS’s ability to run future placement cycles smoothly. The matter comes even as the wider higher education sector grapples with a funding crisis, with universities and the Higher Education Loans Board both carrying billions of shillings in pending bills.