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Abstract
Vocational and technical education and training are important for
a country’s sustainable human capital and economic development.
However, for Kenya’s Technical, Industrial, Vocational Education and
Training (TIVET) system to play these roles, it needs to be reformed.
Currently, the system faces a number of challenges, including
fragmentation of its programmes, limited integration into the formal
education system, weak linkages with local labour markets, insufficient
finances, inadequate monitoring, poor wage employment opportunities
for its graduates, and limited alignment with technological innovation
at local and global levels. To address these challenges, TIVET reforms
should include policies and strategies to tackle issues related to quality
of programmes, relevance of the training offered, employability of
graduates, collaboration with training institutions, and collaboration
among industries and employers. It is important that the country
develops national skills standards, national qualifications framework,
and adequate internal and external quality assurance mechanisms.
Other measures worth noting include professionalization of TIVET staff,
and adequate resource mobilization for TIVET from all stakeholders.
TIVET programmes should be competency-based, demand-driven,
and consistent with global and national labour market needs; efficient
and equitable; and of high quality. Adequate proficiency testing for
learners should be provided. Industry and education and training
institutions should point to the gaps of current TIVET programmes
and appropriately support curriculum review. Public attitudes towards
TIVET should change so that the public can view the sector as an avenue
to well-paying employment, quality self-employment and higher
education, as they view opportunities offered by the formal tertiary
education programmes.