McKinnon de Kuyper

October 6, 2014
Institutional Strengthening
Professor Bouka
An Unexamined Parallel:
Emphasizing the Importance of Technical Training in Kenya and Delaware
Four years ago, Kenya announced that it would invest US $56 million to revamp their
technical, vocational education, and training (TVET) programs. The curriculum was in dire need
of a facelift, since it still reflected the original plans from the twentieth century colonists who
instated it so they could puppeteer the population. In the years following independence, technical
programs saw minor revisions. It was not until a half century after freedom that Parliament
passed the TVET Act of 2013 that called for an upheaval of the outdated system. The new Act
scrupulously details financial provisions, accreditation of trainers, and the assessment council, to
name a few. Despite its seemingly all-encompassing approach, our education readings all pointed
out the need for better TVET in Kenya. What is prohibiting the programs success? This paper
will attempt to detail two of the major hurdles: persistent absenteeism as a result of limited
student interest and a weak job market due to lack of infrastructure.
Before delving into the roadblocks, it is important to detail the errors in the current
education institutions in relation to TVEC. Firstly, Miller and Elman reveal in Improving the
Quality of Education: Kenyas Next Challenge that teachers are frustrated by the disjuncture
between the relevance of knowledge and skills acquired by pupils in this rural school and the
informal life skills they learned outside the classroom. Instructors are required to engage an
overpopulated class with lectures (didactic teaching) that do not apply to students livelihoods.
Although primary school is free (FPE) in Kenya, these irrelevant lessons make the trip to school
not worth it and deter students from working towards applying to secondary. But when
vocational skills are offered, especially in areas that adhere to the local formal and informal
economies, the commute and secondary school fees are a bit more worth it.
Furthermore, Kenyas education curriculum is not homogenous. Effort has been made to
slowly integrate technical skills into general studies but a concise system of evaluation has not
been constructed. According to Kenneth King of the Centre of African Studies, the existing
approaches may be summarized as: schools offer skills development as an alternative to
secondary education, do not separate out skills but instead require an introduction to practical,
business, and agricultural skills by everyone in the general school system (primary and
secondary), or similar to the prior, but the vocational options relate to the informal economy in
addition to the formal sector. With little data, it is difficult to determine which of these systems
have made the greatest impact. King puts it simply, There are no reliable numbers on the scale
of training; there are very major concerns about qualitybut virtually no evidence; and there no
acceptable data on outcomes. For legislation, how can policymakers begin to implement what is
best when there is no way to measure what is?
To interject a suggestion, I prefer the final option in which primary and secondary school
students are required to take training courses in addition to their general education requirements.
By secondary school, students should have the option to either focus on the core curriculum, take
a maximum of two technical courses, or follow an intensive technical track. They would choose
this path based on which courses they enjoyed during their primary years or possibly they would
have a trial period during their first year of secondary school to figure out where they were most
comfortable. This way, students would have a sense of freedom in their selection and choice in
their future. I suppose this is a very Sen-like approach to education, since he views development,
as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy. In this approach, expansion of
freedom is viewed as both (1) the primary end and (2) the principal means of development.
Creating an education system in which students have a sense of control over their futures may
inspire dedication to their studies.
Returning to the major hurdles I initially pointed out, persistent absenteeism as a result of
limited student interest and a weak job market due to lack of infrastructure are inevitably
connected. The former can be connected to the colonial setup for TVET. When the colonists
began educating Kenyans, it was not so they could one day climb the career ladder from
construction worker to construction company owner. The British needed skilled laborers to fill a
job and like almost everything, the colonial legacy stuck and created an unglamorous stigma of
technical training. The majority of young adults in my generation have grown up consuming
magazines and newspapers that detail the luxurious lives of members of parliament or celebrities.
We want those kinds of careers and the kind of education that will prepare us for spotlight
success. With the medias influence at play, it is rare that a young adult wants to become a gear
in a machine. And if they do, they are seeking employment that offers career advancement.
Ngome from the Bureau for Educational Research at Kenyatta University best sums this up when
he writes that one of the issues is student bias against vocational subjects (except commercial
and information technology related subjects). The negative attitude by students towards
Vocational education stems from the perception that academic education is a more promising
path to high salaried formal sector jobs and with that, a high social status. As mentioned, poor
attendance is a pressing concern because the general education school day consists of undesired
information.
In addition to policymakers, it is unclear to me how to best remedy this issue. It may be a
good start to guarantee that students are at least being given technical options that are relevant to
the economies of their locale. One of the major issues is that students are leaving secondary
schools with skills in a geographically useless trade or being sent into an empty job market. To
guarantee applicable training, the TVET Act of 2013 designates the authoritative body in charge
of recommending what is most useful in the areas of the polytechnic institutions. Hopefully, they
succeed in doing so but even if, this does not guarantee that there will be jobs available when
students graduate.
After some thought, I questioned the importance of enhanced infrastructure for the job
market. A possible solution for the lack of employment in Kenya would be investing in the
countrys infrastructure. To pave roads, create a plumbing system in rural areas, and strengthen
the power grid, hundreds of skilled workers would be desired. And ideally, if a contract and
paycheck was waiting at the end of TVET, the program itself would appear more appealing and
attendance would improve. Notably, there does seem to be a ton of growth happening around
Nairobi. There is a bypass crossing over Kibera that is supposed to stretch all the way to
Rwanda. But to save money, the Kenyan government outsourced labor to workers who sent all
their paychecks home instead of reinvesting in the economy here. From word of mouth, I have
learned that there is bias revolving around hiring Kenyan companies some say they dont get
the job done as quickly as foreigners. I suspect labor is outsourced because it is less expensive
for the government, but if it is truly because Kenyan workers are not as efficient, that may circle
back to the governments lack of investment in training. Hopefully, the next few years of the
implementation of the TVET Act of 2013 will increase the public sectors trust in hiring its own
citizens.
Every development course and experience in the field Ive ever had, funding has been a
significant problem. Before I wrap up, I should point out why I did not select it as a main factor
halting the success of TVET programs in Kenya. When I look at the numbers, at least $25
million from the Dutch government and $31 million from the African Development Bank, I dont
conclude that there is a lack of resources. Disclaimer: I am an undergraduate who is only
beginning to understand her credit card statements and should not be trusted with the costs of
polytechnic institutions. That being said, $56 million seems like a robust donation from outside
sources when one would expect the the receiving countrys government to add at least half as
much. Even though the TVET Act of 2013 includes sections on financial provisions and
responsibilities of the overarching authority, these funds do not appear to manifest themselves in
instructor trainings or necessary facilities for courses. It is undetermined whether the money has
been misspent, gone missing, or was used efficiently and $56 million was just not enough.
The challenge of integrating a TVET curriculum is not Kenya-centric. Additionally in the
States, high school students in my area began to flounder when they realized they either did not
want to attend college for a liberal arts degree or that they would not be able to due to absurdly
high tuition. I had friends who wanted to spend their lives working on cars, but because they
could not get into our tiny technical high school, they were required to waste their time taking
Pre-Calculus and Physical Ed. Of course, a lot of these kids never graduated high school and
were looked down upon for not having a diploma. This whole system came off to me as absurd,
somewhat elitist, and forced conformism. For a successful economy, we need societies of people
with diverse skills. Contrastly, Delawares school system set up to only applaud the kids who go
on to get liberal arts degrees. This hierarchy of education may encourage some to be the first in
their families to go to college which is good if that is the path they choose, but who is to say that
is worth more than the group who would prefer a certification in a technical area and are
completely excluded from the celebration of success?
Although this paper is written in the context of Kenya, I could easily revise this essay to
apply to the United States. Both governments do their young adult population, debatably the
entire society, a disservice by failing to reinvent their curriculums to prepare students for todays
economy. The lack of legislative response to the education crisis in Kenya reveals a plethora of
flaws in spending and priorities. Or possibly, if the Kenyan Parliament is behaving like the US
Congress is right now, the issue of education is so politicized that it leads to gridlock as
complicated and stuck as Nairobi traffic itself.
Because of this, I question that if maybe, this is the notch that non-governmental
organizations fill in countries where corruption is ripe and productivity is rotten. Without too
much government bureaucracy, NGOs like Women for Women can spring up in areas that are in
dire need of skilled workers and create programs that suit the needs of students in the area.
Unfortunately, they do not have the funds nor the resources to provide for a large population like
the Kenyan government ideally can. Thus, solutions to the two major hurdles facing TVET are in
the hands of the Members of Parliament. We will have to wait and see how the follow up to the
implementation of the TVET Act of 2013 proceeds.