By Laura Miranyi
The Kisumu National Polytechnic College (TKNP) promotes industry partnerships as an integral part of education. The Organization strives to support and enhance the relevance of collaborations in equipping the youth and adults with skills required for employment, decent work, entrepreneurship, and lifelong learning.
In Technical, Vocational, Education and Training (TVET), industry partnerships are important for the development of a high quality vocational education and training, because they foster regular communication between employers and TVET providers. Such communication is critical in TVET practice because on one hand, it enables TVET providers to learn more about the skills demanded by the employers, and on the other hand, it allows the employers to have an input in the curricula of TVET, in addition, it gives them a recruiting tool to employ skilled workers.
Industry – TVET partnerships provide a ray of opportunities to areas such as jobs skills needs assessment including capacity to train staff, participation on alliance steering committee, involvement in curriculum and programme development, internships/apprenticeships, exposure of TVET technical staff to new technologies in labour market, access to enhanced technology and modern equipment and participation in skills competition and innovations.
TKNP values the need for human capital development, crucial for achieving not only the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but also economic growth and to this end the institution supports the need to partner together with industries to modernize the technical institutions and develop a skilled workforce.
The Writer is a Communication Officer at The Kisumu National Polytechnic College