The government has indicated sweeping reforms aimed at transforming Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), announcing plans to phase out conventional classrooms in favor of practical learning spaces while introducing a nationwide graduate tracking program to monitor the employability of trainees.
The reforms, proposed during the second graduation ceremony of Taita Taveta National Polytechnic (TTNP) on Friday, are intended to strengthen industry-oriented training, improve graduate employability and ensure institutions are held accountable for the outcomes of their programs.
Principal Secretary for Technical and Vocational Education and Training Dr. Esther Thaara Muoria said TVET institutions should abandon the traditional model that emphasizes classroom instruction and instead focus on practical, competency-based training delivered in workshops and laboratories.
“We don’t need classrooms in TVET anymore. Any young person walking through the gates should go to a workshop or a laboratory. All those classrooms should become laboratories and workshops just to train these young people practically,” Dr. Muoria said.
Her remarks signal a significant shift in the government’s approach to technical education as Kenya seeks to produce a workforce equipped with practical skills required by industry and the global labor market.
Dr. Muoria said the country could no longer afford to train students using outdated methods that fail to produce measurable results.
“We cannot continue to do things the same way yesterday, today and forever and expect different results,” she said.
She challenged TVET principals and trainers to focus less on the number of graduates they produce and more on whether those graduates secure employment, establish businesses or contribute to national development.
“We cannot continue training young people, graduating them and celebrating them without asking ourselves one pertinent question: What is the outcome of what we are doing?” she said.
According to the PS, the government’s focus is shifting from producing academic qualifications to producing competent graduates capable of meeting the needs of employers and creating enterprises of their own.
She said the transformation would be anchored on Competency-Based Education and Training (CBET) and the dual training model, which allows trainees to split their learning between institutions and workplaces.
“We must ask industry what it needs. We build occupational standards with industry, develop the curriculum with industry and train with industry so that when these young people graduate, they are ready to work in those industries,” she said.
Dr. Muoria noted that Kenya’s ambition of attracting more local and foreign investment depends on the availability of a highly skilled workforce.
She explained that investors would only establish industries in Kenya if they were assured of access to competent technicians, artisans and technologists capable of driving production.
“We must demonstrate to the world that we have enough well-skilled manpower with the requisite technical skills. That is how we will attract industries to invest in Kenya,” she said.
The PS also commended Taita Taveta National Polytechnic for emerging as Kenya’s top-performing institution in the implementation of dual training, saying the achievement demonstrates that close collaboration with industry produces graduates who are ready for the labor market.
While outlining the government’s broader reform agenda, Coast Regional TVET Director John Wamae announced that graduates from TVET institutions will now be tracked for up to three years after completing their studies in a move designed to evaluate the effectiveness of training programs.
Wamae said institutions would require graduates to remain in contact with their trainers and program coordinators and provide updates every six months on their employment status.
“We do not want to release you into the workplace and forget about you. We want to know where you are after every six months,” he said.
He explained that the graduate tracing program will collect information on whether former students have secured employment, established businesses or remained unemployed.
The findings, he said, will help institutions identify weaknesses in their training programs and make necessary adjustments to improve graduate employability.
“We are going to follow you for approximately the next three years. If, after three years, an entire class has neither secured employment nor started businesses, then it calls upon us as trainers to rethink what we are teaching,” Wamae said.
He said graduates are best placed to provide feedback on the realities of the labor market because they are the ones directly interacting with employers and business opportunities.
“You are the best people to tell us what is happening in the market because you are the ones, we are releasing into it,” he said.
Wamae urged graduates to maintain communication with their program leaders immediately after graduation, saying the information gathered through the tracing exercise would enable institutions to review curricula, strengthen industry partnerships and respond more effectively to labor market demands.
He also encouraged graduates to use their technical skills to create employment rather than waiting for white-collar jobs stating, “Do not let your certificate become the most expensive decoration in your sitting room. Put it to work. Start that business you have always talked about, apply for opportunities and continue learning.”
The announcements came as Taita Taveta National Polytechnic celebrated the graduation of 1,780 students in various technical and vocational disciplines.
Earlier, the institution’s Governing Council Chairperson Esther Kalunda Ndile appealed to the national government to support the Polytechnic in addressing shortages of trainers, workshops and laboratories, saying the institution’s growing enrolment requires expanded practical training facilities.
She said the Polytechnic has maintained its place among Kenya’s top-performing TVET institutions, ranking ninth nationally in the latest performance contracting evaluation for the second consecutive financial year.
Despite the achievements, she noted that inadequate workshops and laboratories remain among the institution’s biggest challenges, alongside trainer shortages, incomplete infrastructure and insufficient student accommodation.
The government’s latest reforms place practical skills acquisition and measurable employment outcomes at the center of TVET training, marking a shift from evaluating institutions by the number of graduates they produce to assessing the impact those graduates make in the labor market and the wider economy.
