Kenya is working on a technical and vocational training blueprint that will be in place for a decade at a time this area of schooling has been neglected in the rush for university degrees.
The training should be relevant and deliver self-employment, the new TVET principal secretary Julius Jwan says, setting for himself a lofty goal that has remained unattainable for years, at one time Kenya turning its technical colleges into universities.
For a very long time, Kenya has dreamt of producing university graduates who are “job creators and not jobseekers” to no avail.
Dr Jwan says the blueprint will address the endless questions about relevance, funding, technology, and the future of work at a time the jobs war was getting stiffer.
Speaking on Citizen TV, Dr Jwan said the blueprint is a rebrand that targets “relevant training, technology and self-employment” to ensure that TVET enrolment grows from the current 40 percent to 60 percent when the Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) is fully rolled out. Kenya’s CBC is currently at Grade 4 of primary school.
“We are rebranding TVET so that we can have a continuous engagement with the industry,” said Dr Jwan, who was recently promoted from the Kenya Institute Curriculum Development where he was the chief executive.
The PS said the lukewarm access to technical and vocational training was partly due to unclear communication and weak publicity, two key steps that would ensure that learners appreciate specialisation early.
“We are going to work with the secondary school heads association so that learners can appreciate TVET,” he said, reiterating that “specialisation must start from school.”
The education official said it was wrong to think that joining a TVET college was entering a dead end and dropping the ambition to join university.
However, Kennedy Echesa, an education expert, challenged the PS that it was wrong to sell TVET training as a pathway to something else. He said top officials, in public and private sectors, were relying on diploma and certificate holders to fix their machines and laptops, especially at a time the world was leaning towards virtual engagements.
Mr Echesa said Kenya had failed to position vocational training as an end in itself since the practice of turning colleges into universities warned prospective learners that the centres were inferior.
This year, a mere 32 percent of the TVET training chances declared by the Kenya Universities and Colleges Placement Service (KUCCPS) were taken up by the 2019 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination candidates.
Of the more than 276,163 vocational training chances that KUCCPS declared, only 88,724 were taken up with girls outshining boys at 55.26 percent.
Of these, 53,726 will be admitted to diploma while 29,112 and 5,886 will go for craft and artisan certificate courses respectively.
Dr Jwan said Kenya’s TVET schools are well-equipped with the latest training tools and equipment, some better than what is available at Kenyan universities.
The placement agency has revealed that number of candidates preferring diploma courses to degree programmes was increasing steadily. This year 2,632 candidates, some with grade A, opted for diploma courses, a rise from the 1,269 in 2019.
Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha christened them TVET Champions whose selections were “a clear indication that concerted efforts to improve enrolment in TVET courses are yielding fruits.”
