Mombasa Info
Related Articles
The government has hired 6,000 instructors for
Technical and vocational education and training (TVET), institutions across the country.
Photo: By Joseph Ouma
This counteracts the acute shortage of this cadre and bridges the growing gap between trainers and trainees.
In a speech at the Ramogi Institute of Advanced Technology (RIAT), Dr. Margaret Mwakima, Main Secretary (PS), State Secretary for Vocational and Technical Training, yesterday at the opening of a driving school that the student body had overwhelmed the existing facilities by far.
Dr. Mwakima said the driving school was built by a former student at a cost of SH 43 million, which shows that the training they offered was in line with global standards and will attract a greater number of young people in search of quality driving lessons.
“We have equipped vocational training institutions, the number of which has increased enormously from 51 in 2013 to a record 238 this year. However, the number of expected trainers who are supposed to convey relevant knowledge in the sense of the Big4 agenda is low, â€explained the PS.
She said the government has committed to investing in vocational training facilities as its graduates play a vital role in job creation, adaptation and use of modern technologies that are critical to transforming Kenya into an industry-based economy.
Dr. Mwakima said RIAT has taken the lead in offering programs that are relevant to industry needs and meet international standards.
“Graduates from this great institution should not only be able to find employment in the world market, but also become self-employed and employers,” she added.
This gigantic shift has created a need for unique transformative engineering skills, a need that can only be met through a properly developed and thoroughly implemented competency-based education and training program (CBET), said Dr. Mwakima.
She argued that industry-focused, high-quality, demand-driven CBET programs are the foolproof means of ensuring immediate and sustainable employability for VET graduates.
The government’s efforts and deliberate steps to invest heavily through infrastructure and human resource development, the formulation of a proactive regulatory framework, and subsidized tuition fees should ensure that the sleeping giant is awakened to play its rightful role.
In addition, she said, undergraduate students, like their alumni, can now have access to Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) funds in both public and private institutions.
“I urge young people to seize the opportunity to acquire the necessary lifelong skills and competences that will enable them to compete cheaply in the workplace,” declared the PS.
She said the establishment of the RIAT Driving School, for which the institution invested $ 6 million from its coffers, came in response to public calls for safe and responsible driving and to minimize the number of deaths on our roads, even more so among the Boda Boda drivers.
National Transport & Safety Authority (NTSA) Program Director Samuel Musumba announced that the Boda-Boda training, which began in Kiambu, Kajiado and Machakos, continues to have an overwhelming response and there is a need to expand the exercise across the country . with a view to curbing deaths due to reckless driving.
He appealed to all 47 counties to complement the national government’s efforts to contain deaths on our roads by promoting behavior change and licensing training.
By Joseph Ouma
