The … youth needs to be empowered, and it can be done through good education and vocational training — MM Pallam Raju.
Recently, Education CS Amina Mohamed revealed that 2,299 out of 130,000 KCPE candidates who had not reported to any secondary school had joined vocational colleges. She expressed deep reservations, saying vocational colleges are not a place for 12 or 13 year olds.
They are not ideal from the perspectives of educational psychology and philosophy as well as law.
It is the constitutional right of every child to acquire free and compulsory basic education. The government has for the first time created opportunities for learners who have completed primary school to have secondary education experience. Most of these children are around 13-14 years.
SDG Four tasks states to ensure all children complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education and to substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.
The government has invested in expanding and modernising secondary education and technical vocational training to meet the aspirations of Kenyans and an industrial and technologically savvy world.
It does not, therefore, make sense to let children far below 16 years to join TVETs. To gloss over this anomaly is to encourage child labour, which is prohibited. Early exposure to TVET means early exposure to work. Premature training entails depriving children of their childhood, potential and dignity. This is harmful to the children’s physical and mental development.
While every parent or guardian would wish their children got jobs, pushing a 12-13 year old into vocational training undercuts whatever opportunities the child is likely to have in the unforeseeable future.
The ideal age of entry into vocational training in many countries with established technical vocation training is more than 14 years. It is around 18 and 20 years in some Western countries.
Ability to understand information and to communicate effectively is needed for personal development, social interaction, participation in civic life, lifelong education and for employment. Secondary education provides the perfect opportunity for learners to cultivate the knowledge, skills, personality, character and all they need to cope with and manage a rapidly complex and changing environment.
Kenyans must not be deluded. Primary education simply provides the foundation. The skills developed at this level cannot be optimised by an individual or society. They are rudimentary. The child needs, at the very least, a further two years of secondary education to consolidate and stabilise the skills and knowledge gained at primary education level.
Countries with established traditions of TVET expose children to general education — either simultaneously as they train in specific trades or after completing high school education.
The Report of the Fourth Commonwealth Education Conference 1968 in Lagos, Nigeria, noted that although technical education is chiefly concerned with securing greater industrial, agricultural and commercial efficiency, it also aims to produce better citizens and thereby fulfils a social as well as an economic purpose.
The 100 per cent transition to secondary school is aimed at laying a stronger foundation for social and economic purpose of education. It means the country will have a corps of students who have the mental, physical, intellectual and moral foundation to effectively undertake courses in TVET and Higher Education institutions, but after having had a secondary education experience.
The Ministry wants to see TVET graduates who can follow instructions and be able to serve the needs of industry and technology with the required competencies. This is the reason behind Amina’s statements to the effect that “vocational college is not the place for 12 or 13 year old children.”