The Kenya National Qualifications Authority has said that there is a need for the education sector to align training and certification to the economic needs of the country saying the current high rate of unemployment of university graduates in the country is down to Kenyan universities churning out irrelevant human resources in the job market.
Speaking during a National Industrial Training Institute Board of Directors meeting, the authority’s Director General Juma Mukhwana said Kenyans in the job market have qualification papers that are irrelevant, creating a situation where there are jobs without people and people without jobs in the same economy.
“This economy is looking for workers in construction, ICT, human health, but we have a lot of people going for business management, sociology and arts. We need to take courses that this economy is looking for,” said Mukhwana.
According to the Authority, the lack of skilled labor in the job market is slowing down the country’s potential to harness the blue economy. Mukhwana went ahead and said the lack of skilled labor in the country has led to Chinese domination in road construction in Kenya as local Kenyan engineers don’t have the competitive edge.
The Authority also revealed that 30 percent of all the qualifications being used in the Kenyan market in government and private institutions are fake while some academic institutions issue qualification certificates yet those certified cannot do the work they are certified for.
The Authority recommends the establishment of a national database with universities that captures graduates and is accessible to employers.
“We want to hold the colleges and universities accountable. If you are producing a mechanical engineer, make sure that they can perform the work of a mechanical engineer,” said Mukhwana.
Speaking at the same event, National Industrial Training Authority (NITA) chairman Kamau Gachigi said Kenya should leverage on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) to create new markets for its products by aligning Kenyan qualifications with African’s and global qualifications.
According to NITA, intra-trading within African countries is only 15 percent,against 75 percent in Europe while Asia has 45 percent.
“We are doing more business with other people than with ourselves. That means we are exporting our wealth and importing a lot of things from China and India, and yet we are saying our young people are unemployed,” said Mukhwana.
Currently, the authority in partnership with NITA, is developing a new qualifications framework that will ensure skilled workers especially in the informal sector are adequately certified to match the economic needs of the country with the skills required.
