NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 4 – The Office of the Ombudsman has faulted the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement System (KUCCPS) for charging students Sh25 per SMS to access college and university placements.
Its preliminary investigation found that KUCCPS’s website did not provide students with access to placement information or any other alternative without additional costs.
However, the service could only be accessed via SMS.
“The Commission’s attention has been drawn to reports indicating that your Institution released the placement results for students who applied to join universities and colleges in Kenya for the year 2022 but access to such important information is restricted to short message service (SMS) whereof the costs per SMS is Kshs 25/-,” the Office of the Ombudsman Access to Information Director Viola Ocholla said in a statement yesterday.
“The Access to Information Commissioner engaged your Office on the foregoing whereby your office stated that the system of access to individual results by each student was working,” she added.
According to Article 35(3) of the Kenyan Constitution, institutions are required to ‘publish and publicise any important information affecting the nation’.
Similarly, Section 5 of the Access to Information Act, 2016, requires organizations to proactively disclose relevant information to members of the public that is likely to affect or give effect to the realization of citizens’ fundamental rights and freedoms.
“To comply with the obligation on proactive disclosure of information, your Institution is expected to have availed adequate guiding information on the alternative access procedures on your website or any other media (online or otherwise) in addition to the information on SMS access,” it said.
“This is to request you to respond to the foregoing concerns as well as inform the Commission on the measures initiated by your Institution to ensure full compliance with section 5 of ATI, 2016 within seven days from the date hereof.”
