Nairobi — More than 46,000 KCSE candidates in 2006 who scored the minimum qualification for university admission will miss places at public institutions.

The Joint Admissions Board (JAB) met on Tuesday at Kakamega's Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology and declared that only 16,151 of the 62,853 qualifiers would be admitted to the seven public universities and the colleges for this academic year.

This will be a 52 per cent increase as compared to the 2005 KCSE group that joined the public universities last year.

The JAB, under the chairmanship of Moi University Vice-Chancellor, Prof Richard Mibei, announced that the cut off points for male students would be B grade of 65 points, while for women it would be a B of 64 points.

Mibei said 10,300 men and 5,851 women were selected, representing a 64 and 36 per cent ratio.

The University of Nairobi will take the bulk - 3,908 - Moi 3,404, Kenyatta 3,160, Egerton 1,937, JKUAT 1,080, Maseno 914 and Masinde Muliro 460 students.

Six new university colleges were allocated 1,288 candidates. They are Mombasa Polytechnic University College (127), Kenya Polytechnic University College (152), Kimathi University College (421), Pwani University College (236), Kisii University (212) and Chuka University College (140).

Vice-Chancellors, Prof George Magoha (Nairobi), Prof Fredrick Onyango (Maseno) and Prof Wangila Barasa (Masinde Muliro) attended the meeting.

Others were Prof J K Tuitoek (Egerton) and Prof Mabel Imbuga (acting Jomo-Kenyatta).

Mibei said the board took into account the capacity and facilities of each university in allocating the number of students.

He added that universities were willing to admit more students, but were handicapped by lack of facilities.

Mibei urged the Government to give more funds to new university colleges to boost learning facilities.

"Most university colleges do not have adequate facilities and should be funded to provide quality training programmes," added Mibei.