Kenya needs more technical institutions

Kenya is experiencing an acute shortage of skilled manpower due to poor policies that place more emphasis on university education at the expense of technical education.

Many established technical institutions have been converted to universities. The reason is the fallacy that university education is a panacea to human resource needs of our country.

It all began with the grand coalition government when the retired president Mwai Kibaki converted the best technical institutions at that time into universities. This was seen by many education experts as a political gimmick. Mr Kibaki's handlers thought that by upgrading middle-level colleges into universities, the former president would appeal to voters in the regions where the institutions were situated.

Close to ten years after making that decision, the country's labour market is struggling to get technicians and artisans to do technical jobs. Multinationals operating in the country are forced to import skilled labour from their home countries since the local market cannot supply them.

Policy makers should halt any intended move to upgrade existing technical and vocational institutions into universities. The country has more than enough universities. The Government should set up more technical institutions as they would help address unemployment.