At least 4188 youths joined various vocational training institutions in 2020 according to the director of social services of the Kiambu County Government.
Ms. Catherine Nduati made this remark yesterday at a colorful ceremony held at the Kiambu County Government headquarters where the governor of Kiambu Dr. James Nyoro was issued out bursary funds.
According to Ms. Nduati the County currently has at least 39 vocational training institutions that are operational and three which are upcoming. She revealed that they were located in Githunguri, Kamburu and Ndeiya. Areas.
She said that those who were enrolled last year was an increase compared to 2017 enrollment which stood at 2884 students placed within the tertiary institutions.
According to Ms. Nduati their mandate is to offer vocational training in the community by focusing on young people who are untrained.
Through this process they will be able to reduce idleness among the young people which results in many undesirable behaviors by the youth who are left with nothing to do after completing their form 4 studies.
She however, highlighted the main problem facing the vocational training institutions in the county which were inadequate staff. According to her as the number of trainees increase there should be an increase of trainers as well.
This has not been the case in the county, and in an attempt to cope with this challenge at least 100 training staff need to be employed.
Another challenge facing the vocational training institutions according to Ms. Nduati is security threat. She noted that there are inadequate security personnel to guard the institutions because they are unable to employ them and thus several institutions have been broken into and have had valuable property stolen.
“Kiambu is an industrial county” She said; therefore, it requires skills like plumbing, motor vehicle engineering and many other skills which if fully invested in would go a big way in creating employment for young people by providing labor to the growing businesses, she added.
Speaking in the same ceremony the chairman of the education select committee Anthony Ikonya said that the world was headed to technical skills and in Kenya today the job market was taking more people from technical institutions as compared to universities and for that reason they had a powerful theme of the year which mirrors youth empowerment.
By Lydia shiloya and Jane Kageche.
