The Kenya Universities and College Placement Service has one week to respond to inquiries over technical issues in its portal.
The 7-day ultimatum was issued by the Commission on Administrative Justice also known as the office of the Ombudsman.
In a letter released on Thursday, director of access to information Viola Ochola noted that students are experiencing issues while trying to access the portal in a bid to know their placement in varsities.
"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 Sh25," Ochola said.
She said that upon their investigation, the results were only available through SMS but not on the KUCCPS portal as it was directed.
"Nonetheless, the Commission undertook a preliminary investigation into the matter whereof an audit of your institutional website https://kuccps.net/ did not yield information on how students could access the placement information on the website or know the alternative ways in which such information could be accessed without incurring unnecessary costs," Ochola said.
She added that KUCCPS should have availed adequate guiding information on alternative ways of accessing the results.
"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," Ochola 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."
The Commission referred KUCCPS to Article 35(3) of the Constitution which requires institutions to publish and publicise any important information affecting the nation.
It also noted that section 5 of the Access to Information Act, 2016 requires institutions to proactively disclose information that is relevant to the public or which is likely to affect citizens' rights and freedoms.
