Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: Empedocles on November 28, 2016, 04:53:33 PM
-
Very good news.
Nothing beats the German apprenticeship program.
(http://mkenyaujerumani.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Amina-Mohammed-and-Steinmeier.jpeg)
Germany’s Ausbildung system is world renowned for its ability to keep most young people employed and ensuring young people have the relevant skills for the job market. With this background, Germany is looking to export their know-how to other countries.
During Uhuru Kenyatta’s recent trip to Germany, there was an agreement for a cooperation between the two countries, which seems to be coming to life with a 3 billion shilling investment meant for training masons, plumbers and mechanic to ease the growing unemployment by encouraging blue collar jobs and solving the skill shortage in the Kenyan job market.
Kenya has in the recent years snubbed technical training, with the conversion of most polytechnics and mid-tier colleges into universities. This has led to increased number of universities students, degree holders and unemployed graduates but very few well trained technicians. Most of the ongoing construction works in the country have had to import skilled labour, quite a pity in a country with such a high unemployment rate.
The money from the German government will go into equipping training units to offer the craftsmen with modern skills to match the needs of the market.
Germany’s ambassador to Kenya, Jutta Frasch, said upgrade of the vocational units holds the key to tackling joblessness in a country where unemployment stands at above 40 per cent.
“This might be seen as a small (contribution), but we have to start somewhere,” Ms Frasch said, adding that Kenya should entrench vocational training just like Germany, China and Switzerland.
The German dual vocational training system (Ausbildung), students attend classes at a vocational school while simultaneously receiving on-the-job training at a company.
“Kenya has many degree holders, and vocational skills are also needed for transforming the counties,” United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative, Siddharth Chatterjee, said .
The two spoke after the introduction the Youth Sector Working Group (YSWG) which is expected to shepherd initiatives to ease youth unemployment. The YSWG has representatives drawn from the national and county governments, private sector, youth organisations, philanthropic society and development partners like the World Bank and UNDP.
Businessman Chris Kirubi will represent the private sector while Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett will co-chair the group together with Ms Frasch.
The number of students enrolled in Kenya’s vocational schools has increased from 13.4% to 55,3% in the four years between 2011 and 2015. While the number of learners in universities has more than doubled over the period from 251,196 to 512,295, reflecting the growing appetite for varsity education that has led to the short supply of technicians.
-
Technical training is a must. I seriously question the value of many current degree programs, of the liberal arts variety, that money is wasted on.
-
Kenya needs to covert all those "universities" shut down to Technical Colleges.. Blue collar work is what will build Kenya and there is still abundance of this work. everyone ones a corner office but only 5% of the population has this luxury. Is Kenya Polytechnic now a university? Does it offer engineering degrees or technical degrees?
-
Technical training is a must. I seriously question the value of many current degree programs, of the liberal arts variety, that money is wasted on.
Exactly.
Everybody in Kenya wants to be a doctor, with not a single thought being given on who produces the equipment doctor's need.
-
world needs more liberal arts so thinkers and creators. not many engineers can make stuff and end up doing factory work, just like not many scientists make new drugs and end up doing menial tasks in labs.
it's just a matter of offering degree programs that can combine creativity and engineering.
-
lots of top tech people I know either dropped out of college or have an arts degree. i honestly don't know any successful engineers in tech sector. a lot just end up working for construction companies under the direction of architects (who are arty).
-
world needs more liberal arts so thinkers and creators. not many engineers can make stuff and end up doing factory work, just like not many scientists make new drugs and end up doing menial tasks in labs.
it's just a matter of offering degree programs that can combine creativity and engineering.
I won't argue against that. Some might be needed. I am arguing against Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Chinua Achebe types. The fact that some have even won Nobel prizes tells me we have enough of those.
-
world needs more liberal arts so thinkers and creators. not many engineers can make stuff and end up doing factory work, just like not many scientists make new drugs and end up doing menial tasks in labs.
it's just a matter of offering degree programs that can combine creativity and engineering.
Germany long ago understood that for a country to prosper, they need people willing to do the grunt work, not academicians unwillingly forced to do work they think is beneath them. Put a university graduate in the same position and they'll spend all their time trying to get into an office.
(https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-DD016_1gerjo_P_20140606102644.jpg)
These workers are the backbone of the German machine, honing and more importantly passing on their factory skills to future generations.
-
world needs more liberal arts so thinkers and creators. not many engineers can make stuff and end up doing factory work, just like not many scientists make new drugs and end up doing menial tasks in labs.
it's just a matter of offering degree programs that can combine creativity and engineering.
Germany long ago understood that for a country to prosper, they need people willing to do the grunt work, not academicians unwillingly forced to do work they think is beneath them. Put a university graduate in the same position and they'll spend all their time trying to get into an office.
(https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-DD016_1gerjo_P_20140606102644.jpg)
These workers are the backbone of the German machine, honing their skills with each passing year.
Grunt work is the term I was looking for. It's not even just Germany. The US, the west really. Blue collar is usually fairly well trained guys. The guy that comes to test your water quality, fix your plumbing, your car, the local pond...right there is an entire economy that has nothing to do with exporting or importing stuff.
-
those blue collar workers didn't go to uni. They are trade professions so via apprenticeships. Often with engineering graduates with hand skills they end up doing an apprenticeship upon realising there aren't many hand jobs for engineers. Those engineers who want to work in an office upon graduation go into sales, then work their way up to managerial positions.
Problem is there are too many formally educated students in professions like engineering, IT that don't match up to what's out there in the job market. Engineering should be offered in colleges not theory like uni, which was the case 30 years ago. Engineering and even IT so telcommunication jobs are man jobs requiring drilling and construction skills neither which are offered at uni. You have all these thin squaky nerds no serious engineering/It manager would hire onsite so most of them end up in sales or call centers.
People who actually run the IT force like the innovators are dropouts with a passion for programming not even 4 years of uni can teach. People who are great at engineering are builders who were on apprenticeships, run their own business, become managers for construction companies. Those engineering and IT degrees are really there to burn out migrant communities, so drain their pockets at the promise of tech high life, then feed them like fodder to run call centers and sales on meagre salaries.
-
The first jobs to go will be factory work like the stuff blue collar workers do, replaced by programmers, police, security, teachers, educators, call centers, sales, healthcare etc. only thing really left in a very futuristic society are thinkers, creative, artists, innovators, ethicists, those professions that keep humanity human. life fresh & sustainable. Basically any job in the public sector is replaceable via machines.