The country’s Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions currently need 9,121 trainers to be able to handle the rapidly growing sub-sector, a recent report has revealed.
According to TVET Sub-Sector Report released October, 2024 by the Ministry of Education’s State Department of TVET, the rapid growth in TVET institutions for the last three years has seen the trainer requirement increased from 12,066 in the financial year (FY) 2021/22, to 13,175 in FY 2022/23, and further to 16,518 in FY 2023/24.
Of the 16,518 trainers needed during the previous 2023/2024 FY, only 7,397 were in-post, leaving a shortfall of 9,121 trainers in the sub-sector, which now has 230 operational TVET institutions with a cumulative enrollment of 406,649 trainees.
In the report, the 24 national polytechnics which have an enrollment of 152,951 trainees had only 2,637 trainers employed by the Public Service Commission (PSC), leaving a shortfall of 3,481 trainers; while the only Kenya School of TVET, which has an enrollment of 4,710 trainees, had 109 trainers employed by PSC, leaving a shortage of 79 trainers.
The 24 national polytechnics (NP) are Kisumu NP elevated in 2014, Eldoret NP elevated in 2024, while those NPs that were elevated in 2016 are The Kenya Coast NP, North Eastern NP, Sigalagala NP, Nyeri NP, Kabete NP, Kisii NP, Meru NP, and Kitale NP.
Nyandarua National Polytechnic was elevated to this status in 2020 while the rest, which are Kiambu, Taita Taveta, Rift Valley, Nyamira, Tseikuru, Shamberere, Kajiado, Mawego, Kericho, Bungoma, Jeremiah Nyagah, Kaiboi, and Baringo, were elevated in 2024.
The hard hit by the shortage are the Technical Vocational Colleges (TVCs) and Technical Training Institutes (TTIs), 201 in number countrywide, having a total of 244,767 trainees.
These institutions which are mostly found at constituency level had only 4,422 trainers employed by the PSC, hence requiring an additional 5,369 trainers to address the shortfall.
Special Needs TVET
The Special Needs (SNE) TVETs on the other hand, which are only four in the country with a total enrollment of 4,221, had only 230 PSC trainers, leaving a shortfall of 192.
The four SNE TVETs in the country are: Machakos TTI for the Blind, Karen TTI for the Deaf, Sikri TTI for Deaf and Blind, and Nyangoma TTI for the Deaf.
The report shows that the SNE TVETs had a combined budget of Ksh160.4 million in FY 2021/22, Ksh220 million in FY 2022/23, and Ksh120 million in FY 2023/24; with the number of trainees enrolled increasing from 3,805 in FY 2021/22 to 4,487 in FY 2022/23 and 4,221 in FY 2023/24.
The construction of a hostel and a workshop in each of the four SNE TVETs as per the report was completed in three of the institutions in FY 2021/22, while that of Nyangoma was completed in FY 2022/23.
Three of the four received assistive learning and training devices, tannery equipment, footwear equipment, stitching machines and hand tools during the review period.
In mitigating the shortfalls, Governing Councils/Boards of the institutions employed 6,851 trainers on Board/Council terms, with the trainer-trainee ratio during the review period being 1:55 against the recommended World Bank ratio of 1:25 for regular TVET and 1:10 for SNE TVET.
Further, in September 2021, the PSC approved recruitment of 3,000 trainers, with another cohort of 1,300 being recruited during the 2022/2023 FY, and conducting interviews for 2,000 trainers in the 2023/24 FY.
Surge in enrollment
Enrollment in the TVET institutions has almost doubled in the last two years due to increased funding and establishment of new institutions, with the report showing that the overall enrollment in public TVET institutions increased from 297,505 in 2021/2022 FY to 345,387 in the FY 2022/23.
This increased further to 406,649 in the FY 2023/24, which represents a 36.7 per cent rise, with the statistics not including that of private technical institutions under other line ministries and Vocational Training Centres (VTCs).
The increase in enrollment is attributed to the establishment of new TVCs in the country, expansion of capacity of existing TVET institutions, and increased funding for SNE TVET.
Other reasons include introduction of annual capitation to all eligible trainees in the TVET institutions under MoE and enhancement of higher education loans, bursary disbursement and adoption of open distance education, commonly known to many as ODeL.
At the same time, the number of accredited public and private TVET institutions, including those in line ministries, rose from 2,271 in FY 2021/22 to 2,401 in FY 2022/23 and further to 2,605 in FY 2023/24.
The total number of institutions under the purview of MoE at the end of FY 2023/2024 was 251, out of which 230 were operational while 21 were at various stages of completion.
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The number of VTCs under the county governments rose from 1137 in FY 2021/2022 to 1,281 for the FY 2022/2023. However, the figures declined to 1,222 in FY 2023/2024 due to the closure of several centres, largely attributed to funding challenges.
The number of private technical and vocational institutions also increased from 1,057 to 1,238 in the same period. The private institutions comprise 1,128 TVCs and 110 VTCs, with 45 accredited TVET institutions being domiciled in various line ministries.
Funding
When it comes to funding, the report shows that annual capitation of Ksh30,000 per trainee introduced by the government in the financial year 2018/2019 highly contributed to an increase in trainee enrollment in TVET, though the corresponding capitation budget remained constant.
The increased enrollment also resulted in decline in capitation per trainee from Ksh17,258 (57 per cent) in FY 2021/22 to a low of Ksh13,000 (43 per cent) in FY 2022/23 and Ksh14,000 (47 per cent) in FY 2023/24.
The report further showed that the TVET sub-sector in the MoE experienced a capitation deficit of Ksh14,660,938,710 over the period under review, with a sum of Ksh3,825,849,210 not being paid in FY 2021/22, Ksh5,936,228,000 in FY 2022/23, and Ksh4,898,861,500 in FY 2023/24 due to insufficient budgetary allocation.
By Roy Hezron
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