Kenya plans to increase the number of tutors and funding to technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions in the coming financial year, which begins in July. This is meant to boost the sub-sector’s contribution towards bolstering the country’s skills set to drive her growth ambitions, said the National Treasury and Economic Planning ministry in the 2024 Budget Policy Statement.
The step means the government will hire an extra 2,000 tutors for TVET institutions, bringing the total in the sector to 11,500. The budgetary allocations for TVETs also rise to US$68.7 million in the 2023-24 fiscal year from US$35.7 million in the previous year.
Professor Njuguna Ndung’u, the cabinet secretary in National Treasury and Economic Planning, said at the release of the report in Nairobi on 24 February 2024: “TVET has grown exponentially regarding the number of institutions and the enrolment rate because it provides opportunities for youths to acquire employment and entrepreneurship skills.
“The rapid change in technology and the dynamics in the labour market require that TVET links with industries to update skills and training. To address this, the government plans to increase the number of tutors to facilitate the value of technical and vocational training in the provision of skills, knowledge and competencies.”
“To address the financing gaps which denied many young Kenyans the opportunity to pursue tertiary education, the government has unveiled a new funding model for higher education and TVET that guarantees needy students free college studies. The new model for financial support is student-centred and deploys a rigorous, impartial means testing instrument to establish their level of need, which then becomes the primary consideration in allocating scholarships and loans,” he added.
Fostering a learning environment
This comes after the government injected US$8.1 million into TVETs countrywide in January to facilitate the provision of key support programmes in tuition, utility training materials and curricular activities.
According to the TVET principal secretary Esther Muoria, the funds were aimed at fostering a conducive environment for learning and skills acquisition at the institutions in addition to enhancing accessibility and elevating the quality of education TVETs offer in the country.
“These include providing financial assistance to individual trainees, a move designed to empower aspiring professionals in various fields,” Muoria said last week while speaking to the media in Nairobi.
The government has been vocal in offering technical and financial boosts to the institutions in the country to enhance the quality of graduates to match the needed skills in the market. This was echoed by Kenya’s Ministry of Education director, Martha Odundo, who underscored the government’s commitment to invest in the sector to benefit learners and turn out relevant skills for the job market.
“As you realise from last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education results (KCSE Class of 2023), the majority of learners will go into these pathways of technical and vocational training,” Odundo said in Nairobi on 29 February.
In March last year, the Public Service Commission (PSC) pushed for funding to recruit an additional 1,000 TVET trainers, arguing that the move would help to bridge the existing gap in the tutor-student ratio.
Tutors in high demand
Speaking in Nairobi on 28 February, the PSC chair, Ambassador Anthony Muchiri, stated that expanding the number of instructors across the country’s 144 TVET institutions will ensure that young people benefit from obtaining technical skills that can lead to self-employment. Out of the 1,000, some 887 tutors were to be deployed to technical training institutes, 79 to national polytechnics, and 34 to special needs institutes.
Tutors with backgrounds in electrical, electronics, automotive and electrical engineering (power), surveying, architectural, building, civil engineering and medical laboratory technology are in high demand.
Funding higher education in Kenya has been a persistent challenge the government has faced in the first semester of the 2023-24 academic year when the new funding model was rolled out; the government disbursed the funds to the varsities late towards the end of the semester.
First group has benefited
In December 2023, the Kenyan government released US$26.8 million in scholarships for first-year students in public universities, the pioneer group of the new funding model.
The funds were wired to universities to cover the tuition fees of the approximately 115,892 students who had successfully applied for government scholarships. This was in addition to the US$36.4 million the government disbursed as loans via the Higher Education Loans Board to first-year students.
