By Prosper Makene
The implementation of East Africa Skills for Transformation and Regional Integration Project (EASTRIP) at National Institute of Transport (NIT) indicated a remarkable results in accordance with Disbursement Linked Indicators/results (DLI/Rs) as per Strategic Investment Plan (SIP).
NIT’s Monitoring and Evaluation Officer – for the Centre of Excellence in Aviation and Transport Operations (CoEATO) Eng. Nashon Masunya pointed out that the Institute has initiated seven (7) DLI/Rs in an implementation of the EASTRIP project, “According to Disbursement Linked Indicators/Results – DLI/Rs as per the Results Framework in the Strategic Investment Plan up to June 30, 2021 have shown an impressive outcome.”
Eng. Nashon named the seven (7) DLI/Rs that have been established according to the project as Establishment of Project Implementation Unit (PIU), Student enrolment at regional flagship TVET institutes, Number of demand-driven programs developed and accredited by national TVET accreditation agencies or certified by industries and MoUs signed with industries and partner institutions.
Other DLI/Rs established includes Number of flagships TVET institutes whose Industrial Advisory Committees are established with 50% representation of the private sector, Number of teaching staff in regional flagship TVET institutes who have an industrial attachment, Number of teaching staff who undertake exchanges in another country and Tracer study conducted annually.
“On DLI for student enrollment at regional flagship TVET institute, NIT has so far enrolled 8,224 students which is 178.2 per cent and this record is above our target of enrolling 4,615 by the end of EASTRIP project,” he said.
He added: “On long term courses, we have recorded enrolment of 248.74 percent and on short term programmes, we have recorded 10.26 percent less compared to the long-term courses due to the outbreak of COVID -19 but now, we have good plans to improve the enrolment on short courses at this time with IATA courses.”
On a number of demand-driven programs developed and accredited by national TVET accreditation agencies or certified by industries, Eng Nashon said that NIT has introduced 14 programmes out of which ten (10) curricula are for long term programmes as well as four (4) for short term programmes.
He went on saying that until June 30 this year; about 20 academic staff have attended industrial attachments in various institutions in the country.
“…only one academic staff has attended the industrial attachment outside the country, we haven’t done well in this area, but the Institute expect to see 12 staff attending the attachments starting this year”.
We messed up on this component due to the outbreak of COVID-19 which reduced and restricted travels and another factor that set us back is due to the absence of exchange programme policy. “… I believe this is going to work out positively as the National Coordinator – Ministry of Education Science and Technology is working on the said document so that we can improve this DLI” he observed.
On the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs), he said that the Institute has so far signed 10 MoUs with industries and partner institutions and the Centre through Industrial Liaison Officer is working hard to sign more MoUs.
On Tracer study conducted annually, Eng. Nashon said: “We have so far done one tracer studies for three cohorts of 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/2020 and the good news is that the study shows in 2017/18, about 97 percent of our graduates received employments in just six-month after the graduation, in 2018/19, at least 98.3 percent of the graduates got employments and in 2019/20 the study recorded 99.6 percent.”
Revenue Improvement
Eng. Nashon said that the new programmes developed by the Institute in collaboration with the stakeholders from transport sector have tremendously improved the revenues from USD$ 1.02 million in 2018/19 to USD$ 2.18 million in 2020/21, and this is from the demand driven programmes only both long and short.
“We are expecting to achieve the Project’s development objectives as per Strategic Investment Plan (SIP) which meant to increase the access and improve the quality of TVET programs and to support regional integration and regional economic corridors,” Eng. Nashon concluded.