By Godwin Bonge Muhwezi
The Inter University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), the EASTRIP Regional Facilitation Unit, in partnership with Guangzhou Technician College held a capacity building webinar on: “Overview of Vocational Education Reform in China”.
The webinar, which took place on 25th May 2021, is part of the IUCEA and Guangzhou Technician College (GZTC) to offer training programmes for capacity building of Regional Flagship TVET Institutes.
The capacity building webinar was preceded by an opening ceremony during which IUCEA signed a cooperation agreement with GZTC to offer a series of training programmes to improve the quality of TVET programmes in East Africa.
The IUCEA Executive Secretary, Prof. Gaspard Banyankimbona and the Principal of Guangzhou Technician College, Li Minggen signed on behalf of their respective institutions.
Prof. Banyankimbona said, “the East African Region has witnessed increase in infrastructure developments which need high skilled technical experts for such strategic projects for the region”. However, he observed that “the region is still faced with the challenge of lack of requisite skills for our youth to benefit from such projects and also the unemployability of youths is a serious challenge this partnership is expected to address”. Prof. Banyankimbona said, “the cooperation between IUCEA and Guangzhou Technician College with support from the World Bank comes at the right time to address the skills shortage”.
The Principal of Guangzhou Technician College, Li Minggen said that the partnership will continue to strengthen Africa-China relations.
The Writer is the Project Communication Officer for EASTRIP at IUCEA.