Technical skills shortage puts Jubilee’s growth goals at stake

An artisan at his juakali shed in Eldoret: An acute shortage of technical skills has hit the economy as universities take over middle-level colleges that used to train artisans and technicians. Photo/FILE  Nation Media Group

By George Omondi

In Summary

• The country has witnessed an alarming rate of takeovers of polytechnics and other middle-level colleges by universities in the last 10 years but is yet to come up with clear policy to address the problem.
• The 26 Principal Secretaries have warned that most of the projects lined up by Jubilee government may not be realised due to lack of manpower. They met in Nairobi Tuesday to review the government’s roadmap for achieving the ambitious development goals.
• In Africa, Kenya ranks a distant third from Nigeria and South Africa in terms of the number of engineers per population
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An acute shortage of technical skills has hit the economy as universities take over middle-level colleges, putting the government’s ambitious development plan at stake.

The 26 Principal Secretaries (PSs) sworn into office last week have warned that most of the projects lined up by Jubilee government may not be realised due to lack of manpower.

“These skills are in short supply yet they are critical for numerous economic clusters that are planned to come up at constituencies, counties and national levels,” said Industrialisation and Enterprise Development PS Wilson Songa.

The country has witnessed an alarming rate of takeovers of polytechnics and other middle-level colleges by universities in the last 10 years but is yet to come up with clear policy to address the problem.

Experts have faulted this trend, saying it has created a gap in production of vocational skills such as plumbing, mechanics, tailoring, carpentry and welding which are critical for self-employment and generating jobs for others.

“Universities are important in creating innovations and ideas but should never replace technical institutions which produce skills for implementing the ideals and creating jobs,” said Wainaina Gituro, the Social and Political Pillar director at the Vision 2030 Secretariat.

The Jubilee coalition has set itself a target of generating one million jobs annually from its third year in office. As heads of government departments, the PSs are charged with delivering the ambitious targets

The principal secretaries met in Nairobi Tuesday to review the government’s roadmap for achieving the ambitious development goals.

“The gap existing between the skills available and what is required to meet the Vision 2030 is frightening,” Dr Songa told a forum organised by the planning and devolution ministry to review the second medium term plan (MTP).

The government does not have a national skills inventory and under pressure from the private sector to make public the details of skills available locally ahead of a plan by East African Community states to open up job markets, the labour ministry last year commissioned a national skills inventory survey.

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The study being undertaken by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics is expected to be concluded and made public this year.

Tuesday, key government departments and agencies said the skill shortage extended to courses generated by universities, echoing a view long expressed by key pillars of vision 2030 such as agriculture, ICT, manufacturing and tourism.

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Last year, the government added mining and petroleum as the seventh pillar of the Vision 2030 following the discovery of oil in Turkana.