Nairobi — Public universities have completed the selection of 20,000 new students, effectively turning their focus on last year's Form Four candidates whose results are to be released on Tuesday.

A list of names of the record number of new students released by the Joint Admissions Board (JAB) on Friday indicates that female students have narrowed the gender gap on their male counterparts, giving a ray of hope to efforts by gender and government officials to even out the divide.

Female students comprise 39 per cent -- or 7,820 -- out of the 20,073 students selected, an increase of eight percentage points from the 2007 qualifiers.

Their male counterparts took 12,253 places in the seven public universities, the highest ever number of qualifiers to be admitted in the 20-year history of the 8-4-4 system.

The students sat the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination in 2008 but could not join universities last year because of a backlog in admissions.

In 2007, women formed 31 per cent or 5,228 of the 16,629 students picked. "This is a major statement by women students," said JAB secretary Ben Waweru.

"We are encouraged by the gains made by females, which mean a campaign to have more girls stay in the formal education system are bearing fruit."

Mr Waweru said the final board meeting held at Maseno University on Wednesday decided to hand over the list of successful students to universities where they are expected to report to.

The universities will then write to individual students advising them on their admission date(s). The reporting dates usually range from between May and September of each academic year. "We have now closed the chapter on admissions for the 2008 candidates," Mr Waweru said.

The next stage "is for us to fix a meeting towards the middle of the year to roll out the admission process for the 2009 KCSE candidates."

Mr Waweru said the number of students getting admitted to the universities had doubled in just under three years, thanks to the massive expansion of universities that now have 13 university colleges.

The minimum grade required for one to join a public university in Kenya is a C+ grade. But with the number of students passing with grades A and B rising, the cut-off mark is placed much higher.

The selection is based on scores of students and availability of places in each (degree) course. Though the number picked was high, it will still leave out 52,500 students, qualified with the minimum C+ mean grade, from joining universities.

The maximum a candidate needs to score the best A mean grade is 84 points. The board had lowered the entry point from 66 points to 65 points.

But women and students from arid areas were cushioned under an affirmative action policy that would allow them to join the universities at a point or so less.

Of the students selected, Kenyatta University will admit 4,034 followed by the University of Nairobi, whose intake will be 3,726.

Moi University will admit the third highest number (3,404), followed by Egerton with 2,274. Jomo Kenyatta will admit 1,070, Maseno will take 983 and Masinde Muliro 618.

The rest will be absorbed by recently established university colleges, including Kenya Polytechnic (693), Kisii (648), Narok (486) and Kimathi (400).

Those who have missed out can either join the self-sponsored programme in public universities or join local private universities.

In the 2007 group, University of Nairobi admitted the highest number of new students -- 3,905. Moi University admitted the second highest number of 3,270 followed closely by Kenyatta, whose intake was 3,128.

Others were Egerton (1,924), Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology with 1,159 and Maseno (897).Kakamega-based Masinde Muliro University of Agriculture and Technology admitted the least number, 506.