The Education ministry has announced ambitious plans to enroll more than 3.1 million youths in technical colleges.
Education Cabinet Secretary, Amina Mohamed, on Friday said there is a worrying crisis in the country as a large number of students graduating from universities and middle level colleges lack employable skills.
“We have a big challenge in our institutions of higher learning because most students produced are unemployable and this must be dealt with urgently by ensuring that institutions provide skills that are required by employers,” said Ms Mohamed.
The CS said the government has been working to establish technical, vocational and national polytechnics across the country to ensure that young people are trained with the right skills.
Currently, Kenya boasts 4,450 vocational training centres and 11 national polytechnics.
The government has already built 60 new technical and vocational colleges nationwide with an additional 70 set to be completed by end of 2018.
Ms Mohamed said to bridge the gap that has been existing, the ministry of education is engaging the labour industry and market to access the loopholes in the education sector.
“We are doing these through TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) and skills development departments,” the Education Secretary said.
Ms Mohamed was speaking at the Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA) in Karen during her tour of the institution.
“Our main goal is to ensure that science and technology is fully entrenched in the education sector,” said Ms Mohammed.
CEMASTEA director, Stephen Njoroge, said the institution is committed to training teachers with skills which can be passed on to thousands of students.
“We have trained a hundreds of teachers, however we are calling for more support as the number of teachers being trained has drastically gone done,” said Mr Njoroge
Ms Mohammed said the ministry is committed at ensuring that the institution is training more teachers.