The Education ministry and Chinese firm Avic International will this year begin the second phase of equipping technical training institutions to improve learning in the institutions.
The company gave the ministry a concessionary loan of Sh16 billion to equip the labs of 134 technical and vocational institutions with Chinese machinery.
The provision of equipment is part of the government's plan to facelift the tertiary institutions.
The fields to be equipped include hospitality and civil construction, rapid refrigeration and air conditioning, mechatronics, value addition, agriculture machinery, automotive, welding, electric and electronic engineering, rapid prototyping and computer numerical control.
Speaking to the Star on Monday, Avic International's corporate affairs manager in Kenya Linet Mwende said the move will raise the standards of technical training institutes to revive Kenya’s manufacturing sector.
revived in the future.
“Through improving
the technical education sector we have been upgrading the practical
skills of students pursuing technical courses in Kenya to meet the
needs of the country in its growth and industrialization. Kenya and
Africa as a whole presents a very good opportunity for us to exploit
the potential of these two countries and we are always happy to be
part of this journey,” she said.
According to Principal
Secretary Vocational and Technical Training Dinah Mwinzi, this will
help in the reduction of unemployment among the youths.
“We have so far constructed 60 technical colleges across the country and our aim as a ministry is to have 290 technical and vocational colleges, 1,540 village training centers and 47 national polytechnics across the country by 2022,” Mwinzi said.
She encouraged training institutions to adopt a hands-on approach in the training of their students.
The first phase, which started in 2013, involved 10 learning institutions and 15,000 students at a cost of Sh3.3 billion ($33 million) including Technical University of Kenya (TUK) in the capital Nairobi.