The government had been challenged to ensure Technical Vocational Training (TVET) institutions accredited Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA) as Qualification Awarding Institutions start operations.
Managements of the selected institutions should also market their accreditation facilities and capacities to ensure that school leavers accessed their services.
The department for TVET should also put in place mechanisms to ensure that tailor made technical courses suitable for the evolving labour market are offered.
Residents of various parts of Mbeere South said that unless the facilities providing Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) skills and knowledge were expanded for young people in Embu County to access them.
Principal Secretary for TVET Dr Esther Thaara Muoria recently announced that most of the technical and vocational institutions led by polytechnics had been accredited to award qualifications accreditation.
However, Mbeere South community village elders and parents led by Mbeti South manager Nicholas Icia have confessed lack of knowledge about the existence of accredited colleges in the area and called for more transparency in the way the institutions offered this service.
Icia noted that recently thousands of young school leavers and those without academic documents returned home disappointed after attending a trade fair recently in Embu where no accreditation was carried out despite promises they would be issued with required documents.
Instead, most stands under the fair organized by the Embu County administration at Moi Stadium belonged to marketing teams from various vocational institutions and private agencies competitively recruiting those seeking jobs in the diaspora.
“The young people patronized the trade fair in huge numbers because they had been misled to believe that accreditation facilities would be made available to test their prior skills and knowledge in technical areas and be issued with required documents, but that did not happen,” said Icia.
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Since the government started allowing the technical and vocational training facilities to certify prior skills and knowledge, fears have been raised that the managements of the approved institutions may compromise the work by insisting that the applicants must undergo retraining in the in the facilities at a fee.
“Let us be transparent in the way we deal with documentation and accreditation for prior knowledge to avoid unwarranted charges and compromise in how the exercise was being carried out,” added Icia.
Former Mbeere South MP retired Colonel Geoffrey King’ang’i has advised school leavers in the constituency to seek technical skills from technical and vocational institutions.
Rt Col King’ang’i lamented that when the form four leavers failed to enroll in technical institutions, they mostly ended up taking drugs including miraa and muguka.
The leadership in the constituency, he said need to take the lives of the youth with seriousness to ensure they did not fall into delinquency by encouraging and sponsoring them to study in technical institutions.
The constituency the former legislator said the area hosts one of the oldest and best technical institutions, the Jeremiah Nyagah National Polytechnic which offers attractive courses which remain lowly patronized by the young people.
Although some of the courses cost KSh5,000 enrolment by the schools leavers, the former remained wanting hence the need for more marketing of courses by the polytechnic.
He challenged the community to lobby so that the present MP allocates more funds to those enrolling in the polytechnic adding that technical skills presently provide best chances for lucrative employment locally and abroad.
By Robert Nyagah
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