Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has raised concern over low enrollment of young people to Technical Vocational Training (TVET) Institutions.
Speaking at Meru National Polytechnic during a TVET principals’ conference, Mr Ogamba appealed to parents to engage their youths in ensuring they acquire competency based training.
He was accompanied by TVET PS Dr Esther Muoria.
Mr Ogamba said public TVET institutions currently accommodate about 500,000 learners, adding they aim to raise the enrollment to 2.5million learners.
The CS said they have also expanded to include Chinese, German and many others so that those who get jobs outside can have an easy time.
“We are training to expose our trainees to the global market where their skills are of great need because in Europe their labour force is aging. We are also teaching them foreign languages to make them ready for jobs after training,” he said.
PS Muoria said the department is working with chiefs to identify and enroll more youth into TVET.
She lauded Nkabune TTI for using local administrators to raise its enrollment from 1600 to 6000 learners.
“The government is welcoming and committed to include young people to get out of idleness through skill acquisition to stop them from indulging in alcohol and drug abuse,” she said.
On Grade nine classrooms, the CS said they have received funding from the world bank to do 12,000 classrooms and about 68 percent of the classrooms are ready.
“The remaining 4000 will be done by the ngcdf and the ministry of education and they will work together to avoid duplication and they will be complete by December this year,” Ogamba said.