By George Otieno
Principal Secretary State Department of Vocational and Technical Training Dr Margaret Mwakima has revealed that her office will be meeting the Public Service Commission (PSC) to present a memorandum to help resolve the human resource issues within the TVET industry.
Speaking on the last day of the Kenya Association of Technical Training Institute {KATTI} five days capacity building workshop in Mombasa, the PS addressed the recent complaints from industry players about HR problems and the prolonged career stagnation of TVET trainers.
She revealed that strides had been made to address the existing issues.
“The problems will be resolved soon,” she pointed out.
The PS urged TVET leaders to get into income generating activities in order to create their own funding and expand the TVET’s income base.
She also advised institutions to use the available resources to increase their income.
“I would like to urge TVETs to get into income generating activities. We should think of coming up with industries within out TVET institutions to be used for practical training,” she stated.
She revealed that the government is looking into ways of training the industry players in public private partnerships so that they understand how to generate their own income even as they keep networking and looking for more funds through the National Treasury.
Dr Mwakima revealed that the TVET sector has a lot of goodwill from investors and encouraged principals and directors to position themselves to take advantage of the goodwill and to capitalize on it in order to build themselves.
“One of the expectations of a principal secretary and accounting officer is resource mobilization. Position yourselves, open your eyes and ears to know what is happening and work with the county government and county commissioners’ offices since some of the development partners sometimes have to pass through these offices,” she said.
She said that it’s critical to lift the face of TVET institutions to encourage the youth to join the institutions.
She added that the TVET leadership, in their own small way can beautify their institutions by planting trees and flowers, tiling pathways and painting the institution among others to make both the trainees and trainers feel proud of their institutions.
She urged TVETs with equipment lying idle to share the same with those that aren’t well equipped.
Dr Mwakima mentioned that Kenya Teachers Training College (KTTC) will be relocated from Gigiri to a newly identified 100 acres piece of land in Ngon’g to pave way for the establishment of an exclusive diplomatic area that will play host to all the missions, embassies and international communities in the country.
“The decision was informed by the fact that Kenya is both the host of both the United Nations’ Africa offices and UNEP Global offices and also a signatory to the Vienna Convention which provides that nations have a conducive area with good security and well-done infrastructure for the international missions, offices, and expatriates that come into their countries.” She explained.
She assured that the said relocation will be a three year phased out movement during which the normal operations of KTTC will not be interfered with.
“The government has already approved a Shs 4.5 billion budget that will go into reforming, modernizing and making KTTC a state-of-the-art institution. We have also asked the KTTC council to also go and physically establish that there is no baggage around the land and ensure it is intact.” She revealed.
The workshop, themed “Enhancing Access, Quality, Relevance and Collaboration in TVET Training”, was attended by close to four hundred representatives from five regions; Coast, Nairobi, Rift Valley, Western and Mount Kenya Regions constituting the principals, directors, deputy principals, industrial liaison and quality assurance officers.
