Thika-based Milestone Institute of Professional Studies (MIPS) is focusing on private-public partnerships to strengthen its capacity to ensure students get a quality education.
MIPS Founder and Chairman George Maina said that the college through new with only two branches, Thika and Mombasa has a robust internal quality assurance mechanism that ensure its graduates have the desired knowledge, skills, creative abilities, and moral qualities.
He said that partnering with the public institution will help in exchange of programmes noting the exercise will give students self-esteem.
“At MIPS lectures are driven by one thing in common, the desire to empower the society by equipping students with requisite skills needed in the job market,” he said.
He called on the ministry to ensure that not a single student is denied a chance to join University or colleges due to lack of school fee. Last month MIPS offered 50 needy students free scholarships worth Sh4 million to pursue diploma courses in different related fields.
Based on the 2018 KCSE results, 651,189 candidates qualified for placement to tertiary institutions at various levels under Government sponsorship. Of these, 90,744 attained a mean grade of C+ all qualified to join local universities.
Further, 121,288 who scored between C plain and C– in the 2018 KCSE examination are all eligible for placement in diploma courses in tertiary TVET institutions under the Government sponsorship programme.
In addition, 244,436 who scored D and D+ in the 2018 KCSE are eligible for placement 2 in Craft Certificate Courses in TVET institutions while all 194,721 who scored between E and D– in the examination are eligible for selection to Artisan courses in the existing 800 Vocational Education and Training (VET) institutions.
An analysis of the enrolment data shows there are students who opt to transfer from public to private universities to pursue various programmes under government funding.
Transfers from the public to private universities were attributed to better facilities and competitive programmes in private institutions. Public universities were blamed for cases of missing marks and strikes.