More Youths In Kiambu Town Sub-County Joining TVETs — MP Machua

By Felix Njen­ga

Worth Not­ing:

• “By incul­cat­ing tech­ni­cal skills in these young men and women, they will now have the abil­i­ty to join for­mal employ­ment or self-employ­ment. My lead­er­ship will con­tin­ue sup­port­ing our young peo­ple in their endeav­our to devel­op them­selves and their com­mu­ni­ties, ’ he said.
• He said that NG-CDF has plans to put a fly over foot­bridge at KINAP so stu­dents should not be knocked by vehi­cles as they access the insti­tu­tion.
• “Stu­dents are being knocked by vehi­cles while enter­ing KINAP and we have plans of putting up a fly over foot­bridge and also put up cabro on the road they use to access their liv­ing quar­ters,” he said

The inter­est of young peo­ple in Kiambu sub­coun­ty to enroll into skill based cours­es has led to the area mem­ber of par­lia­ment Machua Wait­ha­ka knock­ing doors to the min­istry of edu­ca­tion Tech­ni­cal Voca­tion­al Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing (TVET) depart to put up satel­lite poly­tech­nic so as to ensure stu­dents have eas­i­er access to the edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tion.

Speak­ing at Ndumberi sta­di­um in Kiambu town dur­ing the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny of over 900 stu­dents  after a suc­cess­ful train­ing in Nation­al Indus­tri­al Train­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (NITA) and Nation­al Con­struc­tion Author­i­ty (NCA) cer­ti­fied cours­es in Plumb­ing, Cos­me­tol­ogy, Elec­tri­cal Instal­la­tion and Cater­ing ful­ly paid by the Kiambu Town Nation­al Gov­ern­ment Con­stituen­cy devel­op­ment Fund (NG-CDF) Machua said that the youths have shown inter­est in pur­su­ing skill based course so as to empow­er them­selves.

“We have iden­ti­fied Ben­son Njau Pri­ma­ry school which has got land to put up a branch of kiambu nation­al Poly­tech­nic (KINAP) for­mer­ly Kiambu Insti­tute of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (KIST) so as to reach out to youths who are far off the sub­coun­ty and would be a chal­lenge to be attend­ing class in the main poly­tech­nic which is sit­u­at­ed in Kiambu town,” Machua said.

He said that he is work­ing close­ly with the min­istry to final­ize the move which will go a long way to help­ing youths to access skills near their local­i­ty.

“By incul­cat­ing tech­ni­cal skills in these young men and women, they will now have the abil­i­ty to join for­mal employ­ment or self-employ­ment. My lead­er­ship will con­tin­ue sup­port­ing our young peo­ple in their endeav­our to devel­op them­selves and their com­mu­ni­ties, ’ he said.

He said that NG-CDF has plans to put a fly over foot­bridge at KINAP so stu­dents should not be knocked by vehi­cles as  they access the insti­tu­tion.

“Stu­dents are being knocked by vehi­cles while enter­ing KINAP and we have plans of putting up a fly over foot­bridge and also put up cabro on the road they use to access their liv­ing quar­ters,” he said

He said that day sec­ondary schools par­ents will be pay­ing Sh 2,000 per term and are review­ing how par­ents will be pay­ing Sh1,000 per term.

“We have been able to ease the school fees bur­den on par­ents where par­ents are only sup­posed to pay only Sh 2,000 per term and soon they will be pay­ing Sh1,000,” he said.

He added that schools in the con­stituen­cy have done major facelift where perime­ter walls have been con­struct­ed with a mod­ern gate and school com­pound being fit­ted with cabro and class­es being installed with tiles.

“If you vis­it our pri­ma­ry schools they look like acad­e­my schools due to the facelift that we have done. We have cre­at­ed a con­ducive envi­ron­ment for school­ing and we have seen chil­dren’s grades and edu­ca­tion improve since they are always in school due to the school feed­ing pro­gram that is in place,” he added.

He said that his NG-CDF has neces­si­tat­ed a school feed­ing pro­gram in day sec­ondary schools so as to keep the stu­dents in schools.

Munene Njeru Deputy Direc­tor TVETs Chief Guest advised the grad­uands to take oppor­tu­ni­ty of the var­i­ous bur­sary fund­ings from both gov­ern­ment and pri­vate enti­ties to fur­ther their stud­ies.

“The short cours­es are a launch­ing pad to your career but you need to fur­ther your stud­ies and take oppor­tu­ni­ty of access­ing the var­i­ous bur­sary pro­grams being offered by gov­ern­ment and pri­vate insti­tu­tion,” he said.

Pre­mier Pro­fes­sion­al Insti­tute which is the school that took the grad­u­ates through train­ing of dif­fer­ent cours­es direc­tor Ndua called on gov­ern­ment to give tvets reg­is­tra­tion to be the ones that will be agen­cies of tak­ing those who have applied for jobs abroad since they know who are skilled in what fields.

“We as tvets are the ones who are train­ing the youths and know who is trained in which field. The gov­ern­ment should allow us to be their agents once they apply for jobs abroad,” he said.

He said that the enroll­ment of skill based cours­es has risen since the youths have real­ized that there are no many oppor­tu­ni­ties in white col­lar jobs but there is poten­tial slots and oppor­tu­ni­ties in the jua Kali sec­tor.

“Youths are real­iz­ing that they need to have skills to empow­er them­selves and hence high enrol­ment in tvets,” he said.

He how­ev­er said that the boost and spon­sor­ship to youths by the NG-CDF has giv­en oppor­tu­ni­ties to many who are less finan­cial­ly priv­i­leged as now they have been empow­ered with skills that will help them be self employed and also get employ­ment.