By Justina Chomba
The dream of Rift Valley Institute of Science and Technology (Rvist) becoming a fully-fledged national polytechnic will soon be realized as the upgrade is in the offing.
The dream has been in the cold room for the longest time now as stakeholders debated on whether to keep it as a Technical and Vocational Education Training College or upgrade it to a polytechnic.
Rvist Principal, Daniel Mutai said the institution has sufficient infrastructure, resources including land and personnel for the upgrade.
He said the college which was established in 1979 along the Nakuru-Njoro road has sufficient land for expansion to allow a higher number of students.
Mutai however said there were no plans to further upgrade the institution into a university because there were sufficient universities in the country which were producing more graduates than the job market could absorb.
“There is no need to add the number of universities in the country, there is a big demand for technical skills to help Kenya rise into an industrialized nation,” said Mutai.
He observed that higher education institutions were churning out more quantity surveyors, engineers and architects than the number of skilled artisans such as plumbers, masons, electricians and painters graduating from TVETs and polytechnics.
The Principal said the major shifts in the labor market towards practical-based skills would need more polytechnics and TVETs which would in turn produce graduates with technical skills to satisfy demand.
He added that there was a skill mismatch to be addressed through technical training and not awarding more theoretical degrees.
His sentiments were echoed by Principal Secretary in the State Department for Vocation and Technical Training, Margaret Mwakima who urged parents, students and stakeholders to give the Rvist a chance to become a premium technical training institution that responds to the industrialization needs for training technical human capital for the local industry and global needs.
Speaking in Nakuru when she graced the Rvist’s 15th graduation, Mwakima insisted on the need to balance between theoretical training and imparting technical and vocational skills in accordance to the job market demand.
She said skills imparted by Technical Vocational Educational Training Institutions (TVETs) were critical in propelling Kenya and Africa in general to new industrialisation by 2030.
She said Kenya’s economic growth and development was anchored on TVET adding that the government had been establishing technical training institutions to expand opportunities for the youth by promoting acquisition of technical skills.
“Labour market in the world is transiting from theoretical expertise to practical-based skills, this could be the reason why we have thousands of un-employed but well educated Kenyans with university degrees because of a mismatch of skills and the industry demands,” she said.
She observed that imparting technical skills was also creating opportunities for self-employment.
Mwakima said the government has equipped TVETs with human resource, financial resources, relevant technologies, equipment and infrastructure to facilitate good learning environment geared towards furthering the quality of training and production of industry relevant competencies for both the local and international labour market.
She called upon the youth all over Kenya to take advantage of these facilities and enroll for training in TVET institutions to pursue the various industry relevant
competencies.
