Vocational training can cure unemployment

Of late, Kenyans have been treated to an endless debate on the quality and relevance of the country’s education system with some people arguing it produces graduates who are ill-equipped for the job market. And we have heard about many Kenyan youth who seek opportunities as semi-skilled and unskilled workers abroad, sometimes exposing themselves to untold suffering.

BIPOLAR GEOPOLITICS

As the problem of youth unemployment persists, attacks on the education system and the role of government in it also grow. And Kenyans seem to adopt increasingly hardened positions that, unfortunately, generate more heat than light.

But while many contributors make apparently sensible arguments, most of them seem to be equipped with an incomplete picture of the role of education in youth employability and, specifically, the current challenge of creating adequate jobs for Kenyan youth.

No country can survive, let alone prosper, in this world of knowledge-driven but competency-based economies. Indeed, more developed countries are prioritising a delicate balance between education and knowledge in their abstract forms, and their application to solving social and developmental problems.

Germany, for instance, emerged from the ashes of the World Wars by emphasising vocational training to create readily available solutions to a people ravaged by war. Japan invested heavily in technological innovations as a way of asserting its voice in a world besieged by bipolar geopolitics.

These and many others of their ilk implemented variants of similar strategies and to dominate technological invention and innovation and lead in skills transfer as well as capital donations and grants.

Yet it is largely unknown that all this success was because the countries targeted the youth, equipping them with vocational skills to improve their employability, centralise their presence in the economic dynamics of their country and generally give them realistic hope of a promising future.

MULTIPRONGED APPROACH

The problem as one that requires a multipronged approach. That is how Kenyans should understand the initiatives of reforming the education sector to introduce a competency-based curriculum at primary and secondary school levels, and restructuring the university system to ensure relevance and efficiency.

It is also why other policy and administrative changes have been made to harness and keep tabs on the products of the envisaged education sector.

This is what the government seems to have caught on, especially with its recent inauguration of the National Employment Authority, which, as I understand, liaises with all formal and informal actors to place the youth in gainful employment in Kenya and abroad while ensuring that they are not exposed to unnecessary risks of human rights violations.

But as the government goes about in fulfilling its mandate, it requires broad-based support to ensure no desiring youth fails to secure gainful employment.

That is why, as we continue the debate on the roles of education and youth in the present and future, we spare a moment to acknowledge and support the government’s gains and prospects in this regard.

Ms Pertet is the chairperson of the board, National Employment Authority.