Diploma teachers colleges will enrol students with a minimum of grade C.
Kenya National Qualifications Framework Authority chairman Prof. Bonventure Kere said the decision to lower the entry grade for diploma teaching courses was made due to the decline in the number of students getting the required scores to join the institutions.
Previously, the entry grade for diploma teaching courses was higher, with students joining diploma colleges were required to have a minimum score of C+, but last year the number of students who attained C+ and above in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination were 70,073.
Apart from the entry grade for diploma teaching getting lowered, the transfer of credits to universities by diploma holders is now awaiting approval, in what is expected to be a major relief for diploma holders looking to transition to the university.
Prof Kere said students who have done two-year or three-year diplomas should now be given credit for work covered in the programmes as long as it is the same discipline that they are progressing into.
“It will be unfair for a student who has been in school for two or three years to start as a first year,” Prof Kere said when announcing the lowering of the entry grade for diploma teaching. He added that the decision had been arrived at in consultation with other stakeholders, including the Commission for University Education, which regulates higher education.
The credit transfer programme was put on hold last year after it emerged that universities were abusing it by enrolling unqualified students.
