By Azael Masese
The Government is working on a policy that will streamline sharing of data on labour market trends between training institutions and industry players.
Part of the plan is to create ‘Kenya National Skills Development Policy Network’ to enable graduates be placed under apprenticeship and entrepreneurial programmes.
“This will be an interactive platform where industry players state the skills they require and in turn inform training institutions to review their curriculum appropriately,” stated Meshack Opwora, Director, State Department for Post Training and Skills Development.
The new move is an attempt to address the twin challenges of the country’s rising unemployment levels and the skills mismatch at the workplace.
For years, employers have raised issues that touch on the quality of graduates, arguing that majority do not meet the industry expectations and end up spending considerable resources to upscale their skills.
Opwora stated that lack of employment opportunities has seen a number of graduates remain jobless for years. Market needs keep shifting requiring constant upgrade of skills.
“This is a new state department and cannot start without a policy in place,” Opwora said, adding that the main aim of the policy is to identify industry gaps and retool as necessary.
Once the policy, which is in draft stage, is adopted, it will give way to the creation of a council under which there would be mini councils on specifics sectors such as manufacturing, building and construction.
“We have subjected the draft policy to stakeholders both at the national and international levels, and this aims at improving it further,” he said.
The move, he said, seeks to improve the employability of graduates by offering short courses but more profoundly inform training institutions on the particular skills required, hence review the curriculum.
Besides, this will give those going into entrepreneurship an edge in starting their own businesses. “Once in place, this will give the sector a major boost as training will be done based on the industry needs,” he said.
Focus on apprenticeship will enable one-take short courses to acquire a particular set of skills required in a given field including the school dropouts.
“We will look into the existing qualifications on a set of students and what they require and multitask in the constantly evolving global society,” he said.
It would also explore avenues of placing students under successful success entrepreneurs to learn and emulate their achievements.
“We want successful entrepreneurs to mentor our graduates in specific fields as well as share their success stories,” he said.
If it succeeds, it would address the increasing levels of unemployment in the country where school dropouts can be equipped with life skills.
The department is also vouching for the creation of career guidance and mentorship programmes in schools so that learners learn and know what is required to pursue a given career in future.
“This will enable students grow with a career they want to pursue in mind and this will place them appropriately,” he observed.
The new plan will also include the formation of the National Skills Management Information Data System where information on prospective employees and employers will be stored.
This will work like Uber where one can have their data that touch on their skills, qualification and contacts stored so that anyone who wants a particular set of skills can contact them.
“A potential client who wants some work done can then have access to the available people who can do that within their areas and contact them,” he added.
The system will also provide information to potential employees on a particular job vacancy for a specific organization and the skills required.
As the number of admissions increase in technical training institutions, Opwora termed the new move as a masterstroke to ensure the skills are rightly placed.
