Continuous applications to join technical institutions (TVETs) and national polytechnics training is one of the major strides Kenya has made in the journey to having the right pool of talent and skills in nation building and fight for space on the globe.
Under the centralised applications through the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS), the agency is accepting Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations graduates from the year 2000, a period of 22 years today. In the recent cycle of applications ended October 16, KUCCPS declared 300,000 chances for artisan, craft and diploma courses.
While accepting applicants spread across two decades, the government should open up the chances to all Form Four graduates, giving a chance to everyone who may be interested in further education and could have missed the chance in the 80s or 90s when getting admissions was a life-and-death experience.
Because of age or miss information, some also fail to recognise opportunity. Like Thomas Edison, American inventor, said, opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Through continuous training, it should be possible to cover lost ground.
What’s more, opening the admissions door wider, irrespective of age or year of sitting the Form Four examinations since the 7-4-2-3 system, will dovetail with a revamped adult and continuous education system. Recently, Prof George Magoha, the outgoing Education Cabinet Secretary, hinted at a move to revise the continuous education policy. These are probably some of the issues that the Education Working Party that President Wilam Ruto appointed recently could address.
Allowing everyone access to post-secondary education would be one of the ways of making good use of the idle TVET learning spaces, considering that in the last KCSE class, more than 555,573 Form Four leavers applied to join an institution of higher learning, be it university of a middle level college.
While 826,807 sat the exams, 145,145 joined university having scored C+ (plus) and above and another 126,089 were picked to enter TVETs and polytechnics.
Were the 300,000 study chances to be filled up for artisan, craft and diploma courses, it would boost the country’s pool of human resources and help individuals to achieve their career dreams. For the KUCCPs that charges up to Sh3,000 for applications and placement process, this could be a new stream of revenue.
It is possible that this huge number of untrained resource could be a result of little or unclear information about the availability of study chances, but one of the most obvious barriers is school fees, made worse by the high accommodation charges since the bulk of students live outside the school premises.
Kenya has 4,450 technical and vocational education training (TVET) institutions and 11 national polytechnics that should have enough room to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people keen on continuing education. This is one area that should not elude the 42-member presidential team headed by Prof Raphael Munavu.
