Education CS urges the youth to join TVET institutions

High unemployment rate in the country is due to poor or low education attainment and lack of employability skills, Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Amb. Amina Mohamed has said.
According to the CS, lack of information on the job market, lack of career guidance and skills mismatch between what the young people have and what the job market requires has led to many students undertaking courses which are not marketable leading to joblessness.
To counter this Mohamed urged young people to enroll in Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to acquire professional qualifications which will enable them afford a decent living.
“The aim of this programme is to equip the youth with practical skills which will enable them to either access gainful employment or otherwise venture into self-employment as engineers, technologists, technicians and craftsmen,” she said.
The government is pushing forward the industrialisation agenda in which the skills acquired in TVET institutions and polytechnics will play the bigger role.
Speaking on Tuesday during the World Children’s Day celebration, the CS said that TVET and polytechnic graduates can therefore be assured of opportunities in the public as well as the private sector where these skills are presently in short supply.
“To ensure ease of access to these training institutions, we have subsidised tuition fees and established a mechanism for students to access Higher Education Loans Board (HELB),” said Mohamed.
The CS said the government embraced education as a basic right for every Kenyan almost a decade ago yet the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) indicate, about 263 million children, adolescents and youth worldwide (or one in every five) were out of school as at the end of 2017.
“Of these, 63 million, or 24 percent, are children of primary school age (about 6 to 11 years old); 61 million, or 23 percent, are adolescents of lower secondary school age (about 12 to 14 years old); and 139 million, or 53 percent, are youth of upper secondary school age (about 15 to 17 years old),” added Mohamed.
According to the CS, the Government has grappled with the challenge of ensuring every child has access to education through a variety of measures including the provision of free primary and secondary education.
She further noted that the Ministry of Education had recorded an increase in primary school enrollment with 91.2 percent in 2017 while Primary to Secondary Transition Rate (PSTR) stood at 83.1 percent and the number of primary schools increased to 8,333.
“I call upon all parents in the country to take advantage of Government’s efforts to ensure their children go to school. No fees should be levied on any child and there should be no excuse for not taking children to school,” said the CS.
UNICEF Country Representative Mr. Werner Schultink thanked the government for supporting school children to actualise their dreams and helping in mentorship and professional guidance.
By Mohamed Ali/Joseph Ng’ang’a