By Roy Hezron
Kenyan students will soon be able to study in any country under the Inter-Governmental Authority Development (IGAD) whose member states comprise of Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti, Uganda, South Sudan and Eritrea if the current ongoing initiatives to harmonize regional qualification will see light of day.
Speaking during the second regional consultative meeting on the proposed IGAD Regional Qualification Framework at Nairobi’s Hilton Hotel on May 24, Kenya National Qualification Authority (KNQA) Director General and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Juma Mukhwana, said that the reason for having a regional qualification framework is to help the citizens from member states to work and continue learning in any member state of IGAD without facing any obstacles as is the case currently.
“Each member state will come up with its own qualification framework, which will be aligned to the IGAD regional framework,” said Dr. Mukhwana.
He added that: “The reason why we are doing this is that we have a lot of citizens moving across the borders for different reasons and the whole idea is to make it easier for one to move across the regions with his or her qualifications to work or for further studies.”
Dr. Mukhwana stated further that once the regional framework will be in place there will be standards that will be set and harmonize the country’s qualifications so that it makes it easier for one to move across the IGAD member states to work or study.
He clarified further that the different education curricula among the IGAD member states will not hinder the qualifications framework, noting that the framework will remove the challenges like getting fake foreign qualifications and translation issues that have existed for decades.
‘‘We will have one place where one can go and convert his or her qualifications in affair and transparent way without disadvantaging the person or learner,’’ said Dr. Mukhwana.
In 2018 the KNQA come up with the Kenya National Qualifications Framework (KNQF) which is constituted of principles and guidelines by which records of learner achievement are registered to enable national recognition of acquired skills and knowledge, thereby ensuring an integrated system that encourages life-long learning.
The KNQF is based on the premise of the need to standardize and harmonize the country’s qualifications by putting in place a system for setting standards defining expected knowledge, skills and understanding needed for labour market employment, self-employment or further education within Kenya education and training system and beyond the country borders.
The country’s qualification framework is designed to build flexibility into a framework that would otherwise remain too rigid and crude to accommodate the vast variety of programmes and qualifications offered across the higher education and technical bands.
The purpose of horizontal and diagonal articulation in the qualification framework is to facilitate learner mobility and progression along the framework to be more efficient, and also to be used to admit into the system those learners who do not meet the full entry requirements for their target programmes, where recognition of prior learning (RPL) can most easily be implemented.
The KNQF has defined 10 unique levels of competence where for each level, a National Award has been assigned and provides clear competence descriptors for each level and National Award; and which makes it easier for students to progress smoothly to higher levels of educations.
This implies that from a lower qualification, a person’s skills can be equated and be awarded certificates that will allow the student to progress to the higher qualifications and get remunerated accordingly.
In developing the 10 levels of career progression pathways, the authority used the respective competence descriptors and modifications used by the prominent regulatory bodies–especially South African Qualifications Authority, Mauritius Qualifications Authority and New Zealand Qualifications Authority rather than starting afresh using the occupational analysis approach. This therefore implies that after one undergoing one level of training, he or she will be awarded a certificate that will allow him or her progress to the next level.
