Candidates sitting for this year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KSCE) will be issued with the new Maisha Card before the end of the examination.

Immigration and Citizen Services PS Julius Bitok said the issuance of ID cards to those who will have attained 18 years and above among the 965,000 candidates is intended to ease access to university education and other tertiary institutions.

The PS told the National Assembly’s Education, Research and Technology committee that the joint exercise by the ministries of Interior and Education would ensure students who join universities and colleges are not disadvantaged by missing identification documents.

“We have mobilized our registration officers across the country to issue Maisha Cards to eligible candidates to enable those who qualify to join local or international universities, apply for Higher Education Loans Board, scholarships and other post-high school pursuits.”

The PS further revealed that a paperless Maisha Card registration process is being piloted in Huduma Centres and National Registration Bureau offices in county headquarters to ensure Maisha cards are issued within 10 days.

“We’ve gone paperless. You apply for your ID on the eCitizen portal, then visit any Huduma centre or NRB county office for your biometrics, which will be relayed in real-time to the NRB headquarters in Nairobi.”

Members of the Julius Melly-led committee sought to know what was being done to redress delays in issuing ID cards that candidates joining universities and other tertiary institutions experienced earlier this year.

“We have had a problem obtaining IDs by those who qualify to join universities. Without IDs, they cannot access HELB, loans or scholarships. How far are you in ensuring students access IDs on time?” the Tinderet MP posed.

However, the PS attributed the delays to several court injunctions that stopped the government from issuing Maisha Cards and led to a backlog of 600,000 unprinted cards.

He explained that the government had successfully filed for the lifting of orders and cleared the backlog by investing in a new printer and introducing a 24-hour work schedule. “Our average daily applications are around 10,000, but we have a total printing capacity of 32,000. So far, we have printed over 1.8M cards of which 1.29M have been collected.”

The PS appealed to applicants to collect over 569,000 cards saying those whose IDs are ready have already been identified through Short Message Services (SMS).

Responding to MPs’ concerns that loan applicants were experiencing challenges with application for HELB due to an extra digit on the Maisha Card, the PS said the lender’s portal had been reconfigured to ensure compatibility.