The main gate to the Eldoret National Polytechnic. [Photo/Joe Khisa]
Hundreds of students who scored grade D and below in the 2017 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examinations (KCSE) in Uasin Gishu may not be able to proceed to the next education level.
This is due to lack of sufficient technical and vocational training institutions in the county.
According to the Eldoret West Knut Executive Secretary Jacob Arusei, existing institutions cannot absorb all the students from the county.
This is despite an assurance from the County Director of Education Nichodemus Anyang that there are enough technical and vocational training institutions to absorb all students who cannot join universities.
Statistics released by Uasin Gishu governor Jackson Mandago earlier this year indicated that about 4,000 candidates scored grade D and below in the county 500 of them being E's.
"We don't have enough polytechnics to absorb all those students and this means they will go to a waste today and later become a problem to the community," Arusei said in Eldoret on Saturday.
He now wants the government, both national and county to work on addressing the matter with the urgency it deserves.
"If we don't act now, give it five or ten years, those young men and women will be jobless and they will come for us," warned the Knut official.