Double admissions: TCU sets Sept 6 deadline

Senior Journalist with The Citizen

Mwananchi Communications Limitted

What you need to know:

TCU yesterday announced the opening of the second phase of undergraduate admissions

Dar es Salaam. A total of 31, 132 applicants for university slots, who have not been selected for the academic year 2022/23 and another 37,006 who have double admissions, have 16 days to try their luck in other universities.
They only have to confirm their admission in other institutions. Tanzania Commission for Universities (TCU) yesterday announced the opening of the second phase of undergraduate admissions urging all students who were unlucky due to various reasons and those who have not sent applications to take advantage of the window that was officially opened yesterday, August 24 and which will run through to September 6.
The commission’s executive secretary Prof Charles Kihampa while speaking to journalists insisted that applicants who were admitted to more than one institution to confirm their admission to one of the colleges by using a special secret number sent by text message through their phone numbers or e-mails they used in applying for admission.
“Those who will not receive the message in time, are advised to enter the admission systems of the colleges they have been admitted to and request to be sent a text message with a special secret number to be able to confirm themselves in the respective institution,” he said.
Prof Kihampa added that confirmation of admission should be done through the account that the applicant used when applying for admission.
One of the challenges that education stakeholders have been mentioning that causes many students to miss out slots in their favourite college is the presence of courses that require a small number of students compared to applicants, so TCU yesterday directed higher education institutions to announce programmes that still can admit more students.
In the first window of admission, a total of 106,295 applicants applied to join 76 universities approved for admission in the country, while a total of 757 programmes were allowed to admit students compared to 724 programmes in the 2021/22 academic year.
“In terms of slots, this year there are a total of 172, 168 spaces compared to 164, 901 last year. This is an increase of 7, 267 slots (4.4 percent) in undergraduate programmes,” said Prof Kihampa.
For five years from 2018/19 to 2022/23, the admission trend for the first window has been increasing.
Those who applied for admission in 2018/19 were 74, 113, 2019/20 (83, 197), 2020/21 (90, 572), 2021/22 (92, 809) and 2022/23 (106, 295).
During the years, those admitted in the first phase were 2018/19 (43,005), 2019/20 (51,385), 2020/21 (60,621), 2021/22 (68,019) and 2022/23 (75,163), according to TCU.