The Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry has challenged curriculum experts in the Ministry of Education and the private sector to establish linkages between technical training institutions and universities in the area of value addition.
Such linkages, the ministry said, would ensure that value addition skills available in industries are also mainstreamed in training programmes under public and private sector partnerships, to spur high-level value addition chains.
The partnerships would lead to closer working relationships between the training sector, industries and the public, so that graduates of technical institutions have the required value addition skills before employment.
Speaking during the recent Nairobi Industrialisation Summit, Cabinet Secretary Lee Kinyanjui said Kenyans graduating from technical institutions and universities need to be fully equipped with value addition skills to enter the industrial world directly, either as workers or as investors in the value addition sector.
Kinyanjui said limited linkages between the Ministry of Education and industries, through its technical training establishments, meant that the pace at which young Kenyans graduating from technical facilities embrace the value addition sector remained low.
He announced a government plan to create linkages between the two ministries so that the largely unexploited value addition sector has technical experts coming directly from technical training institutions and universities.
He warned that unless training establishments move aggressively, including by sending their experts to developed countries to study new and emerging digital value addition equipment and skills, Kenya would continue to export its products in raw form.
Kinyanjui said that visiting the stands at the summit showed there was huge potential in value addition, with the capacity to earn Kenyans millions of shillings in foreign exchange. He said, however, that only a small percentage of Kenyans had entered the sector despite what he described as the government's readiness to support them with capital and with training locally and abroad.
He encouraged young Kenyans who have ventured into value addition through small-scale cottage industries, and others, to seek guidance from industrialisation experts in his ministry.
The CS said ministries need firm linkages to ensure that raw materials produced in the country are no longer exported in raw form for lack of value addition technical and digital skills.
He said continued export of products, especially from the agricultural and mineral sectors, in raw form limits the country's industrial growth, its capacity to earn foreign exchange from finished products and the creation of jobs.
He noted that as information communication technology (ICT) innovations, including artificial intelligence (AI), take over industrial transformation, training institutions need to quickly repackage their training to equip Kenyans with value addition know-how.
Kinyanjui questioned why curriculum experts in government and private institutions had not taken it upon themselves to attend such industrial summits and interact with small and large-scale value addition industries to take ideas back to their colleges.
He warned that continued concentration on old training systems in technical institutions leaves graduates in uncompetitive positions. He said surveys indicate that industries spend large amounts of money and time retraining young graduates after hiring them.
The CS also said that although the construction of the Dangote Refinery is creating potential, Kenya lacks experts and workers ready for hire in the refinery sector.
The pace at which the Ministry of Education, through Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), has linked industries with training institutions so that graduates enter employment fully equipped with technical skills remains low.
Most of the value addition skills and equipment provided by the government through the TVET department are concentrated in traditional areas, especially the dairy industry, mainly milk packaging and yoghurt production.
A survey of various regional and national TVET institutions indicates that production of highly marketable products in foreign markets, such as ghee, butter and cheese, remains negligible.
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