Preparation for the Labor Market in East Africa

The project aimed at fostering private sector development and supporting micro-enterprises in in Kenya and Uganda through strengthening the operational and institutional capacity of eight vocational training institutes. This included: 1. Improving the didactic and pedagogic capacities of 8 Vocational Training Centers (VTCs) to strengthen their capacities to offer higher quality technical training to marginalized youths. On an administrative level they have implemented individual self-assessments, made collectivized market assessments, elaborated institutional development plans and have continued to revise and adapt these plans. On the level of training, they have reassessed their curricula, revised and adapted new courses and curricula in line with market demand, trained their teachers, when necessary they have improved the training infrastructure. 2. Orienting the contents of the training provided more along market demand: the VTCs discussed possible strategies with almost 200 companies for continuous interaction and corporations to adapt training to fit market demand. There are various forms of institutionalized collaboration: internships, which are short term work missions at a company, short work assignments for trainers within a company, or additional training for corporate workers at the VTCs. One concept that has increasingly gathered popularity is an approach similar to the European dual training system, where students of VTCs alternate between theoretical training at the VTCs and practical engagement at the company in regular intervals. 3. Supporting the beneficiary partners to collaborate with the public sector: the partners have been introducing not only new training topics that are in particular demand (such as welding), but have also had to elaborate new curricula to meet the expectations for proficiency by the private sector. Therefore they can now approach public sector representatives to contribute in the official recognition of new curricula or the adaptation of existing. At this juncture, the partners are recognized in Kenya as a specialist in the dual training methodology and in Uganda as a specialist in soft skills training. In summary, the project has made very significant progress: Knowledge management and exchange and collaboration between the VTCs have increased their capacities to negotiate with the private sector, recognize changes in market demand and react accordingly. The approach of the Dual Training System has proven to be an excellent tool to secure constant interchange between training units and the private sector to keep training up to date and to provide companies with a way to get trainees that meet their expectations. On an academic level, the first graduates of the Dual Training System have proven to have far superior results than their peers that have not obtained DTS training. Their chances to obtain employment also seem to be by far better, although it is still a bit too early to verify that empirically. Regarding the institutional strengthening of 8 VTCs by July 2017: • Each institution has developed plans for their initiatives • by 23% on average the financial autonomy of each VTC has increased • Each VTC has analyzed and improved its training methodologies • Each VTC has improved existing or elaborated new curricula • The infrastructure of each VTC has been adapted Result of the provided vocational training in the 8 VTCs by mid-2017: • 164 teachers, trainers and administrators have improved their respective capacities • 4.234 underprivileged youths have increased their technical and or/entrepreneurial capacities • All the 8 VTCs conducted cooperation with the private and public sector • 1.014 small scale and micro entrepreneurs that have improved their performance • created 532 number of jobs