By Mogunde Charles
Increasing youth unemployment is a setback among the majority of the youthful generation in developing countries.
Chief Administrative Secretary, Ministry of Education Zack Kinuthia has indeed pointed out that Kenya is among developing country with many graduates who are ill-prepared for the job market.
The unemployment rate in Kenya stands at about 10.4% and the Aga Khan University East Africa Institute released a report giving many reasons for the problem.
The report says youth leaving tertiary institutions and universities lack basic skills which create a mismatch between their education and the job market.
The situation puts the quality of education in TVETs in question. How then do we minimize the skill and job market gap challenge?
The government has immensely constructed/is constructing a new TVETs in every constituency to make tertiary education accessible to youth.
In addition, it has partnered with donors to equip those institutions with the state of the art training equipment.
This effort is in harmony with the UNESCO strategy for Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET 2016-2021) guidelines.
Those guidelines are fundamental to boosting various sectors of our country’s economy, among them extraction of raw materials, mining, fishing and Agriculture that require modern technology and a trained workforce.
The second sector of manufacturing includes construction, manufacturing and provision of utilities such as electricity.
The third sector is the provision of retail, leisure and hospitality, banking and transport services and lastly, the quaternary sector that involves the knowledge economy, education, research and development.
Consequently, today’s workforce requires specialized skills, among them cloud computing, artificial intelligence, sales leadership, analysis, mobile app development, people management, video production, industrial design, blockchain, animation, communication, translation and digital journalism. Skills that are on high demand have been identified but until now I have not seen specific tailor made courses to meet those needs apart from the traditional brand names of courses.
Courses like ICT should be disintegrated to the simple and specific components that can be taught in few days bearing the customer/employer needs.
The world of today’s work requires particular skill that our institutions are not offering.
In fact, the institutions and examining bodies have to re design their training and examining approach so as to match the employer demands.
As described, the current exams brand the majority of our trainees as failures because they cannot memorize statements/formulae and re write them in the queen’s language. That is wrong because we cannot measure competence of our trainees by only answering questions.
What happens to trainees who perform well in practicals but fail to describe procedures in proper grammar?
Typically, work-based learning should be planned and executed by our TVETs and be reflected in school academic calendars and training timetables.
Presently, there are scanty standardized training books for tertiary training institutions so that there is uniformity or harmony in training.
Further, a trainer struggles to collect notes and instructions from many books, journals, electronic websites and manuals so as to deliver relevant content yet he/she has shortage of time given the burden of training hours up to 25 hours per week.
As long as trainers are overburdened, it leaves them with no option than to train haphazardly without regard to quality of the trainee.
Consequently, the end result is churning out youth who cannot meet the market and employer expectations.
The government urges CDACC to create courses that are short and affordable where students get to pay for the units they are studying thus easing the financial strain.
These recommendations though desirable remain a tall order in implementation, because for example, courses developed by CDAAC include core units and common units.
Introducing common units prolongs the time of study and cost which is a burden to trainees who only need specific skill.
The TVETA and CDACC should consider cost and time implication per common unit to show a complete departure from the curriculum that integrates a lot of theories.
Questions to be answered are:
- Is there a unified course structure and fees structure attached to these CDACC courses?
- Are the fees structures affordable as is supposed to be?
- What amount is set for tuition fee levied by an institution and how much is examination fees for CDACC courses?
Equally important, trainers should adopt personalized teaching strategies and respond to unique trainee needs.
These special needs include, trainees with disabilities, trainee prior employment experience and unique learning patterns as suggested by Dr Kipkirui Langat, DG TVET Authority.
That is one of the core reasons for introducing CBET (Competence-Based Education and Training) in TVETs where skill-based practical hands-on learning is a basic requirement.
In response to hands-on learning, the State Department (VTT) should direct the specific number of trainees required to share a piece of equipment at a single practical lesson for quality training to occur.
Similarly, there should be firm direction on the number of trainees a trainer can handle per lesson for personalized training to take place in our institutions.
An instance where 20 trainees overcrowd over a piece of equipment such as lathe machine compromises the quality of trainee.
The solution is for the directors give to limit enrolment of trainees to a single Technical Training Institutions (TTIs), Technical Vocational Colleges (TVCs) or national polytechnics. Currently, we have TVET institutions that are well equipped but with low enrolment below 100 trainees.
Let us reduce enrolment in overcrowded institutions and equitably redistribute trainees to rescue the quality of training.
In the long run, training in our institutions should take the center stage in order to minimize the skills and job market mismatch. On the contrary, un-employment rates of the youths will deteriorate to unsustainable levels.
By: FCPA, B.Ed. (Sci), M.Sc., Mediator, SMC, Mogunde Charles (PhD Candidate)
Email: mogundecharles@gmail.com
