Kenya School of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), has embarked on training the managers of the technical institutions from across the country on income generating strategies in order to enhance effective and efficient management of human and financial resources at the institutions.
The training of the managers has been facilitated through funding by the African Development Bank (AfDB), through the Ministry of Education’s, State Department for TVET, for relevant skills development project PHASE II.
The Ministry of Education contracted the Kenya School of TVET, to carry out training of the managers on public finance management and governance, to improve governance capacity at the Institutions, efficacy and professionalism, in line with governance policies, frameworks and structures of TVET Act of 2013 and sessional paper No. 14 of 2012.
Speaking to the Kenya News Agency during the official launch of the training of the Estate Managers at the Rift Valley Technical Training Institute (RVTTI) and the Eldoret National Polytechnic, State Department for Technical, Vocational and Training Principal Secretary (PS), Esther Muoria, pointed out that the government has established over 120 new TVET institutions, in order to make Technical Education accessible and affordable.
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With the establishment of the new TVET institutions with new management in place, the PS said that it was critical that the managers are trained, so that they are more efficient and effective in running the TVET institutions.
“We are training our managers across all our institutions in the country, we want our managers trained on institutional management, because we want to make our institutions as strategic as possible, to attract as many trainees as we can, because technical training is very important for our country,” said Dr Muoria.
Noting that technical education is key in taking the country to the next level of development, the PS indicated that the Ministry intends to train institutional managers, as well as the procurement and the financial managers, so that they are able to take good care of the TVET institutions, to encourage youth to enroll to the institutions and get trained on the Competency Based Education Training (CBET) curricula, in order to be strategic and able to carry out all the tasks under their capacity, not only in the country, but also internationally.
Dr Muoria further noted that the move by the Ministry was informed by various reports and surveys from UNESCO Bear II, SITVES and by the Kenya School of TVET (KSTVET) which revealed gaps in management capacity in the TVET institutions.
The Kenya School of TVET Director General, Dr Edwin Tarno, pointed out that the project of training on income generating activities which started in June last year, targeted 3,115 TVET managers across the country and has so far trained about 2,000 administrators.
“We started with training of Principals across all TVET institutions, we came to their Deputies, we have come now to Estate Officers and Income Generating Officers, in the next one month, we will be going to train the Heads of Departments of all TVET colleges in Kenya,” said Dr Tarno.
Dr Tarno hinted on implementation of the continuous professional development, which is one of the requirements of the TVET Act of 2013, which requires one to go for training at least once in every three years.
“In the Kenya School of TVET, it is its business to run courses for every staff, including the security officers, cleaners and the kitchen staff, everyone should be able to take a course in TVET, to get some latest technologies. When you improve on technology, you improve on quality of products, hence better health and economy,” he added.
The training of the TVET managers on income generating activities is geared towards fostering quality leadership of the institutions, enhancing adherence to government regulations in public financial management, proper supply chains management services, effective and efficient facilities management and inventory control, proper project planning, management, monitoring and evaluation.