2.12 Kenya: Co-operation in Technical and Vocational Education

by B. W. KERRE

Dr B. Wanjala KERRE, born in 1948, is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the of the Centre for Curriculum Studies in Africa, at the Kenyatta University, Nairobi. He holds a Ph.D. in Vocational Education from the University of Minnesota and has worked as a consultant in this field for UNESCO, ILO, UNDP etc.

(1) Introduction

Technical and vocational education (TVE) in Kenya has grown and expanded rapidly (Kenya, 1988) in response to:

· the need at the national level for the middle and higher level cadre of technical manpower;

· the demand for further education and training by the majority of youth who qualify to proceed with further education but cannot get places in the formal education system due to limited opportunities;

· the demand for vocational preparation by a growing number of youth who opt out of the formal education system at various levels for a variety of reasons, including rising costs of education, and seek employment.

Today Kenya has a network of technical and vocational institutions providing a wide range of programmes for all categories of school leavers.⁸

⁸Source of information: Ministry of Research, Technical Training and Technology, Kenya, 1994

For Primary school leavers, there are over 600 Youth Polytechnics offering artisan courses country-wide. The Government supports about 300 of them with staff and some grants in aid for equipment and facilities. They are mainly community managed and funded. They enrol about 40,000 trainees.

At the post secondary level, there are 20 Technical Training Institutes and 17 Institutes of Technology enrolling about 3,000 and 6,000 trainees respectively. These institutions offer craft, technician, diploma and certificate commercial courses.

At the higher level in technical and vocational training, there are three National Polytechnics and one Technical Teacher Training College altogether with an enrolment of about 10,000 trainees. The polytechnics offer advanced courses leading to diplomas in technology. A Bachelor of Technology degree (B. Tech.) has been proposed in one of the National Polytechnics. The Technical Teachers College offers pedagogical training to qualified and experienced technical personnel who eventually qualify as teachers in their specialised areas.

At the University level, Kenya's five public Universities also offer a wide range of technological programmes and technical and vocational teacher education.

Besides the formal TVE institutions above, there are several non-formal institutions run by government and parastatal departments⁹ as well as private TVE institutions and universities¹⁰ involved in the vocational and technical education and training to supplement government efforts.

⁹ Such institutions include Agricultural Colleges (Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock), Kenya Railway Training School, and Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (Ministry of Transport and Communication)

¹⁰ University of Eastern Africa, Baraton (Eldoret)

(2) Co-operation with Enterprises

The Need for Co-operation

The recognition of the important role that TVE plays in the nation's development has been echoed in several Government sessional papers in Kenya (Kenya, 1986, 1988, 1992). The call by students, parents and employers, for quality and relevant TVE programmes is becoming louder each passing day. In order to meet this demand, both TVE institutions and industry have to cooperate. The institutions are best placed to provide quality, utilising the human resources and facilities they have, whilst industry is best placed to provide relevance through the necessary input into TVE curricula and the industrial experience through attachment.

The benefits for both TVE institutions and enterprises are many. Institutions benefit when students and staff get opportunities to experience the latest practices in industry. Institutions also benefit from industrial donations and consultancy contracts. Enterprises benefit by using professional staff in research and development activities. This will enhance their production capacities and markets. Since they are in most cases the eventual consumers of TVE graduates they benefit from well qualified manpower.

Legal and Policy Frameworks

In Kenya, the only existing legal frameworks within which industry participates in technical and vocational education and training are:

· the Industrial Training Act (Cap 237) of 1960 amended in 1971, and
· the Education Act (Kenya, 1968) revised in 1980.

The Industrial Training Act was promulgated to make provision for the regulation of training of persons engaged in Industry. The amendment of 1971 created the Industrial Training Council and introduced the Industrial Training Levy System (Kenya, 1971).

The Act covers the following areas which govern all forms of industrial training:

· The Directorate of Industrial Training, its management structure; duties and responsibilities of the Director and his officers;

· Training committees, their composition, duties and responsibilities;

· Training Levy orders, mode of payment rates and disbursement;

· Training schemes and procedures of administration and certificates;

· Trade Test, rules and certification procedures.

At present there are eleven committees representing eleven industrial sectors and four more committees representing all industries in management, overseas training, trade testing and curriculum, and investment. The sectors and their amount of contributions are indicated in Table 1.

The skills acquired in the process of training under the Act include:

· (i) Local management and supervisory courses
(ii) Overseas courses

· Technician courses

· Craft courses

· Indentured learnership

· Skill upgrading course.

There is no legal provision bringing TVE institutions into the Act except that Industry uses the facilities and lecturers from these institutions at a fee.

The Kenya Institute of Education is the National Institution empowered by the Education Act to develop curricula for schools and TVE institutions in Kenya. The curricula are developed by subject specialists through subject panels and course panels and approved by the Academic Board. The panels and the board have, amongst their membership, personnel from industry in the technical area of subject specialisation. Their input is valuable in ensuring that the curriculum developed is relevant to the needs of industry.

Table 1 Legal Notice and Industrial Sector Contribution to the Levy Fund

No.	Legal Notice - Historical Flow	Industry	Amount
01	133/1980-237/1971:8/1981	Build. Const. Civil Eng.	0.25 % of Contract Value in excess of 50,000/=
02	123/1980-68/1973:9/1981: 12/1982: 115/1987	Motor Eng. & Transport	100/= per employee per half year
03	128/1980 - 4/1974: 9/1981: 258/1993	Print. Pub. Paper Man.	200/= per employee per half year
04	129/1980 - 60/1974: 112/1975: 256/1993	Engineering	250/= per employee per half year
05	127/1980- 197/1975:45/1976: 17/1987	Food Processing	150/= per employee per half year
06	126/1980- 170/1975:9/1981	Sawmilling Timber Furn.	0.25 % of Turnover in Excess of 20,000/= per each quarter
07	125/1980- 195/1975:9/1981	Textile	125/= per employee per half year
08	130/1980 - 196/1976: 52/1976: 7/1985: 12/1982	Chemical Man. Gen. Proc.	125/= per employee per half year
09	132/1980-46/1976: 141/1976: 150/1982: 257/1993	Plantation Agric.	9/= per metric ton of final product per month
10	124/1980-8/1981: 12/1982: 116/1987	Banks & Other Fin. Inst.	125/= per employee per half year
11	131/1980	Commercial Distributive	50/= per employee per half year

Source: Directorate of Industrial Training, Kenya

Table 2 Management and Supervising Courses 1988-93 Statistical on Local Management & Supervisory Courses as from 1988 to 30th September, 1993

No.	Industry	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	30.09.93	Total
01	Banks Other Financial	466	417	285	224	224	303	1,919
02	Building Construction	2	6	11	6	26	3	54
03	Chemical & General Processing	571	465	387	478	901	647	3,449
04	Commercial Distributive	560	303	253	218	249	451	2,034
05	Food Processing	340	213	228	230	277	248	1,536
06	General Engineering	316	297	217	150	129	162	1,271
07	Motor Transport	113	82	91	93	193	188	760
08	Plantation & Agriculture	394	91	76	96	148	69	874
09	Printing & Publishing	111	98	69	90	100	54	522
10	Sawmilling, Timber	23	22	35	51	50	18	199
11	Textiles	275	175	112	75	86	50	773
12	Others	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Total	3,171	2,169	1,764	1,711	2,383	2,193	13,391

Source: Directorate of Industrial Training, Kenya

Since no legal provision exists to guide TVE institutions and enterprises in their co-operation, a common practice is where individual TVE institutions approach individual enterprises, and mutually agree on some formula of co-operation where students are placed on what is commonly known as industrial attachment. The duration of attachment varies from one institution to the other ranging from short periods of three months to six months and up to one year.

In an effort to get closer to the world of business and industry, the government has introduced entrepreneur-ship education in all TVE institutions and established Small Business Centres through which entrepreneurs and educational personnel interact sharing experiences and bridging the gap between education and the world of work.

Whilst statistics are not easy to obtain especially from institutions about industrial attachments (because this has often been conducted on an informal basis), industry has to some degree played a major role in the recruitment of craft and technician apprentices as seen in Tables 2 and 3.

These types of training have been conducted in the industrial training centres, and in National Polytechnics (DIT, 1993)¹¹

¹¹Directorate of Industrial Training, 1994

Table 3 Recruitment of Craft Apprentices 1988-93 Recruitment of Craft Apprentices as from 1988 to 30th September, 1993

No.	Industry	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	30.09.93	Total
01	Banks Other Financial	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
02	Building Construction	118	45	29	12	9	7	220
03	Chemical & General Processing	13	38	30	18	30	8	137
04	Commercial Distributive	5	22	8	0	0	3	38
05	Food Processing	19	36	5	1	2	0	63
06	General Engineering	222	159	410	89	88	36	1,004
07	Motor Transport	60	163	173	238	86	208	928
08	Plantation & Agriculture	69	69	57	94	108	37	434
09	Printing & Publishing	16	34	19	19	15	5	108
10	Sawmilling, Timber	52	18	19	7	30	11	137
11	Textiles	19	51	43	18	27	26	184
12	Others	5	0	3	0	0	0	8
	Total	598	635	796	496	395	341	3,261

Source: Directorate of Industrial Training, Kenya

Table 4 Recruitment of Technician Apprentice Recruitment of Technician Apprentices as from 1988 up to 30th September, 1993

No.	Industry	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	30.09.93	Total
01	Banks Other Financial	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
02	Building Construction	4	12	4	3	5	1	29
03	Chemical & General Processing	15	9	2	8	13	4	51
04	Commercial Distributive	1	1	0	0	0	0	2
05	Food Processing	4	5	3	2	7	0	21
06	General Engineering	112	180	276	8	85	5	666
07	Motor Transport	13	78	78	37	78	0	284
08	Plantation & Agriculture	9	24	12	40	12	7	104
09	Printing & Publishing	2	5	2	6	3	0	18
10	Sawmilling, Timber	11	13	0	91	16	2	133
11	Textiles	33	44	36	28	40	23	204
12	Others	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Total	204	371	413	223	259	42	1,512

Source: Directorate of Industrial Training, Kenya

(3) Major Constraints

Despite the efforts to bring together technical and vocational institutions and industry, in the production of qualified manpower for Kenya's economy, several constraints have emerged which seriously challenge this important relationship.

Reluctance of Enterprises in Co-operation

In Kenya, only medium and large scale enterprises have been found to have some interest in training. However, this has been on a decreasing level as a result of the slump in the economy. Since training is expensive, and most of these enterprises are foreign owned, they are more conscious about the profit margins and would thus avoid any cost. Quite often trainees are viewed as risks to the organisation and a possible interruption in the production lines.

Information about Benefits of the Co-operation

In most cases, enterprises struggle with problems pertaining to production, marketing or even quality, without realising that they could enlist the support of existing professional expertise found particularly in universities and technical colleges. Co-operation is of mutual benefit, as institutions get their students and staff to be updated on latest trends in their fields of specialisation. Institutions also do benefit from donations and trophies from industry in terms of scholarships, equipment and tools, and of latest technology demonstrations.

Lack of an Effective Industrial Attachment Management Mechanism

The growth of institutions and enrolment in certain programmes, especially the trade and service sectors, means that proper co-ordination of attachment programmes is essential. At present, individual arrangements are causing fraction, especially when they are so regular that enterprises are approached almost on a daily basis for such co-operation.

Inappropriate Methods of assessment

Industrial attachment should be well planned and assessed to contribute towards the final grade. Quite often this is not the case. As a result both trainees and their supervisors do not take the exercise seriously.

Inequitable Training Plans

In the utilisation of the training levy, it is noted that supervisory and managerial staff, who are proportionately fewer in the enterprises, use up the bulk of the training opportunities, whilst the lower cadre staff including artisans, craftsmen and technicians have not benefited as much (see Table 5).

Table 5 Distribution of Expenditure on Industrial Training (1993)

Distribution of Expenditure	Ksh. (million)	%
Enterprise rebates
Direct: Management Courses	14.11	25.2
Overseas Courses	3.55	6.3
Indentures/Craft apprentices/technicians	21.13	37.7
Indirect: Course fees. Polytechnic	8.15	14.5
General Training Support: Skill Improvement	2.72	4.9
Trade Testing	4.94	8.8
Seminars	1.05	1.9
Administration: Advertisements	0.19	0.3
Committee expenses	0.25	0.4
Total	56.08	100.0

Source: Directorate of Industrial Training, Kenya

(4) Future Prospects

A casual observer may be overwhelmed by the above constraints impinging upon the co-operation between TVE institutions and enterprises. However, prospects do exist where these constraints can be eliminated or at least be minimised.

Industrial Training Levy Fund

The Industrial training levy fund has been effective in mobilising funds from enterprises for the purpose of training. The levy fund account has a huge surplus indicating that the enterprises are not using it effectively. There is a need therefore to introduce alternative management strategies, so that the levy fund can be used for various training programmes including industrial attachment, apprenticeships, bursaries, loans for business start-ups and payment of salaries and allowances for teachers and students involved.

The training levy should be expanded to include all enterprises that have a certain level (to be set) of income and member of employees.

Incentives for Co-operation

To encourage more participation by enterprises, more innovative alternatives besides paying of rebates should be explored. Some of this may include:

· honouring those companies that are active by awarding scholarships or research grants in their names;

· naming buildings or laboratories after them;

· recognising their contributions on graduation days;

· allowing them to advertise by exhibiting their products or services in institutions.

Participating institutions should allow teachers paid leave to be attached to enterprises to gain more experiences in their specialised areas.

Trainees should be given decent allowances to enable them meet their transportation and subsistence costs while on attachment.

Proper Management of Industrial Attachment

The current practice should be reviewed in order to institute a well planned National System for industrial attachment. This should include specified responsibilities by

· co-operating enterprises and their personnel;
· co-operating institutions and lecturers;
· trainees on attachment.

The attachment exercise should be assessed and its results used in the final grading of concerned trainees.

Involvement of Craft and Technician Apprentices

At present, supervisory and management courses are taking up about 31.5 % of the training levy direct expenditure while indentured crafts and technician courses take 37.7 %. Enterprises should be encouraged to engage more craft and technician apprentices to reverse the current inverted pyramid where more engineers work with too few technicians and craftsmen but with a large number of semi-skilled operatives.

Need for Industrial Training Authority

In order to manage more effectively and expand Industrial Training Levy and to co-ordinate industrial training in Kenya, there is a need for an Industrial Training Authority with the autonomy to carry out its responsibilities. The present Directorate of Industrial Training which now falls under the Ministry of Research, Technical and Training and Technology is incapacitated to perform such duties.

Need to Enforce the Industrial Training Act

The present Act is not enforceable. Many potential enterprises do not comply. There are no specific grounds for enforcement or prosecution of those who refuse to co-operate. However, the approach should be to exhaust all available mechanisms before enforcing the Act in order to create a positive image and relationship between educational institutions and enterprises.

(5) Conclusion

Technical and vocational education in Kenya has developed rapidly in response to the demand of skilled manpower in the work force and the need to prepare youth for the world of work.

This response is welcome and indeed commendable. However, increasing technological changes in industry and shifting needs of modem society demand that such preparation be carried out in closer collaboration, if not consultation, with enterprises which are the final consumers of graduates of TVE.

It is critical, therefore, that all parties concerned i.e. stake holders (trainees, communities, enterprises and government) identify and envelope and effective mechanism where enterprises and communities will play a major role in the development and sustenance of technical and vocational education if their respective needs are to be effectively addressed.

(6) References

Kenya, Republic of (1968), Kenya Education Act. Nairobi: Government Printer

Kenya, Republic of (1971), The Industrial Training Act. Nairobi: Government Printer

Kenya, Republic of (1936), Sessional Paper No. 1 of 1986 on Economic Management for Renewal Growth. Nairobi: Government Printer

Kenya, Republic of (1988), Sessional Paper No. 6 of 1988 on Education and Manpower Training for the Next Decade and Beyond. Nairobi: Government Printer

Kenya, Republic of (1992), Sessional Paper No. 1 of 1992 on Small Enterprise and Jua Kali development in Kenya. Nairobi: Government Printer