Focus on technical training for youth in new education system

What you need to know:

  • That the Ministry of Education is due to release the new curriculum is good news for those who hope it will address the problems associated with the 8-4-4 system.
  • It is anticipated that the new curriculum will give learners opportunities to acquire knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes to drive the country into a knowledge-based, middle-income industrialised nation.

Our recent preoccupation with anti-IEBC demonstrations and the politics surrounding that subject has distracted us from an important development in the education sector — the curriculum review.

That the Ministry of Education is due to release the new curriculum is good news for those who hope that it will address the problems associated with the 8-4-4 system.

It is anticipated that the new curriculum, which shall be modelled along a 2-6-3-3-3 matrix, will give learners opportunities to acquire knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes to drive the country into a knowledge-based, middle-income industrialised nation. The acquisition of knowledge and skills should ideally possess a practical, hands-on approach.

The 8-4-4 system of education is theory-heavy. This means that upon graduation (or drop out) from any of the levels of the educational ladder, students are inadequately equipped to contribute towards, not only their own survival, but the country’s economy.

It is important and urgent that, as we transform the current curriculum, we strengthen the technological component and give the youth a chance to learn vocational skills that will not only give them a source of livelihood, but also contribute towards building our economy and pushing it towards industrialisation.

Training opportunities in the areas of technology should be geared towards ensuring that the youth gain hands-on experience that can enable them to be innovative and adaptive to the prevailing economic and resource contexts in Kenya.

Indeed, employers are more inclined towards recruiting employees who possess hands-on practical skills. We, therefore, need to give our youth the kind of education that has a strong technological component to make them more employable and innovative. And in order to make this achievable, we must emphasise internship as a key component of the training, especially for the youth undertaking post-secondary education.

TECHNOLOGICAL LEARNING

Such internships can be made more effective if we have strong private-public sector partnerships that give students opportunities to practise in the private sector what they learn in schools, middle level colleges, and universities.

This should be done in a creative and imaginative way to make academic programmes in technology more attractive. The Ministry of Education with its partners can adopt a system of rewards and inducements for the youth who pursue training in engineering and technology at tertiary level. If bursaries and scholarships are widely and fairly distributed, youth are sure to take them up.

Economists and development scholars have for long taught us that a practical skills-based system of education which involves technological learning is indispensable in helping young people to become innovative.

Furthermore, developed countries such as the United States of America, South Korea, and China have vibrant youth-focused programmes that encourage and reward technological innovations through structured competitions.

These are ideas that we can borrow as we overhaul our education system and pursue our national goals. We can hasten our journey towards industrialisation by encouraging youth participation in technology initiatives, initiate competitions for the youth, and ensure that vocational training in areas of technology is not only sustained and expanded, but also benchmarked against the highest standards set by more industrialised countries.

So, as government officials spearhead the curriculum review, they must focus on the need to translate the talk about technology and industrialisation from mere catchwords to actions that can systematically and cumulatively lead to the industrial and technological development of this country.

Failing to do so will be to forfeit a rare opportunity to actualise the promise among the youth. It will be an abdication of the responsibility to push this country towards development.

The writer is a public health consultant. [email protected].