The continued growth of Bomet County and the National labour force and envisaged Vision 2030 goals provide an opportunity for Bomet County to position herself strategically on the national scene. Granted, the success of Vision 2030 is hinged on the sheer numbers, skills, and quality of the country’s manpower.

The County Government of Bomet, therefore, needs to formulate and implement a robust Vocational Training Centres (VTC) policy to guide in the revitalization of the VTC sector in Bomet County to adequately provide skilled and employable trainees needed to drive the aspirations of the Governor’s Manifesto, County’s CIDP and Kenya’s Vision 2030.

Specific emphasis should be placed on enhancing access to TVET Training in our VTCs by increasing enrolment and assuring quality training and skills acquisition.

To realize the above, the County Government should commit itself at all levels to facilitate the development and expansion of infrastructure, increasing human resource capacity, ensuring good governance in VTCs, strengthening quality and assurance of training, providing financial support through grants, bursaries and providing incentives for industry linkage and participation in the VTC sector.

In this regard, the County Government should seek the concerted and supportive efforts of all stakeholders in the County Departments and the National Government TVET sector and indeed the entire education and training system for successful development and implementation of any VTC Policy to guide the realization of the above.

The Vocational Training Centres (VTC) Policy will provide a sound and longer-term framework for achieving a harmonized and coordinated approach to VTC training and development of skilled manpower required by the county

Through a VTC policy, the County Government will be able to guide and provide an enabling environment to promote capacity building including the development of the requisite VTCs human capital, sustainable financial mechanisms for training, development of ICT infrastructures and building of effective partnerships and linkages with industry and all stakeholders for knowledge generation and sharing in VTCs.

Strengthened partnerships between industry and VTCs will provide a good platform for ensuring relevance and quality of training as well as curriculum design and development.

The thrust in the realization of these objectives should be outlined in the policy document in various prioritized programmes and strategic focus areas within the sector and is expected to increase access, equity, relevance, quality and create partnerships with industry, enterprise, community, research, and development institutions.

The success in attaining the policy objectives however has immense implications on human resource, financial and capital development and will entail paradigm shifts in the way our sectoral VTC sector priorities are identified, programmed, and managed.

VTCS are basic education institutions in our immediate communities intended to offer opportunities to everyone to acquire quality skills and knowledge that will make them employable while at the same time providing avenues and paths for attaining higher education through the technical and vocational education system. Specifically, they also equip the trainees with technical and entrepreneurial skills based on appropriate technology and CBET enabling them to unleash their entrepreneurial capacity to fully exploit local community resources for employment creation.

To support the development of VTCs and upscale the acquisition of skills by the youth, the County government, National Government, and development partners are facilitating through assisting by providing tools and equipment, supporting infrastructure development and the national Government has introduced the Subsidized Vocational Training Centres Support Grant (SVTCSG). To supplement this, the VTCs are expected to work out their ways to financial sustainability through Income Generating Activities (IGAs).

Vocational Training Centres in Bomet County have for a long time suffered systematic neglect in the planning and implementation of education and training policies. This resulted in serious deterioration of infrastructure and human capacities, particularly in VTCs. This deterioration led to low-quality training and hence the production of unemployable trainees, subsequently fanning the negative attitude towards VTCs by the community. So Bomet County needs a good VTC policy to guide in putting in measures and strategies to mitigate challenges and revitalize the VTC sector to fulfil and deliver on the mandate it was envisioned to deliver.

The current county, national, regional, and global developments call for a review of the existing VTC policy and strategy framework. It is thus pertinent to align all education and training policies to the county and national vision. Internationally and nationally, there has been a shift in TVET towards competency-based training and evaluation. The success and growth of VTCs in Bomet County will depend on how swiftly the VTC sector responds to the prevailing and emerging challenges that are inherent in a developing economy.

Thus, The VTC sector must address the following; a large number of young people in the informal sector and those who graduate annually from, primary and secondary school system; high levels of poverty that make it difficult for most Kenyans to afford to pay for VTC training; the need to match training of skills with the actual demands of industry,  skills gaps in the immediate communities and the necessity to create a deliberate link between VTC curriculum and the aspirations of the Kenya Vision 2030.

The overall objective of TVET is to produce a critical mass of well-trained human resources to implement programmes and projects identified in Kenya’s Vision 2030. There is, therefore, a need not only to train new persons but also to re-train the available trained personnel. Thus, the VTC sector requires a major transformation to allow the following to happen:

1. Re-align VTC programmes to county goals, national goals, market, and immediate community needs.
2. Expand available VTC training opportunities and make them more accessible to those who need them.
3. Employ affirmative action to ensure equity in respect to gender, vulnerable groups, and persons with special needs.
4. Entrench competency-based evaluation and training (CBET).
5. Strengthen governance and management of the VTC sector and institutions.
6. Re-brand VTCs to enhance positive perception.
7. Develop and implement a mechanism for sustainable financing of VTCs.

Therefore, a good VTC policy particularly for Bomet County will advocate for:

1. Expanding access and equity and improving quality: the policy will advocate for the development of a county skills strategy with broad participation by stakeholders and aimed at promoting private sector investments, providing scholarships to reward excellence, providing loans and bursaries to VTC trainees and rehabilitating VTC infrastructure
2. Management and planning of TVET: the policy should aim to develop a framework and procedures to effectively recruit and manage technicians, instructors, and Principals of VTCs
3. Information and Communication Technologies: the policy objectives should include the following: To develop a VTC policy and strategy; to promote ICT as a tool for management, teaching/training, learning and research; to provide ICT infrastructure and to promote private investment in ICT for VTCs, training and research.
4. Financing and partnerships: the policy should aim to strengthen partnerships with non-public stakeholders and industry; leverage more funding from the private sector; bring on board more private investors and seek external grants and hence optimize affordable higher fees payment.
5. Legal framework: The policy will provide for and guide the development of VTCs bill and legislations to guide among other things establishment and registration of VTCs, the management of VTCs and staffing of VTCs

The policy document will, therefore, present a list of Bomet County Government objectives or intentions for VTCs. It should be noted that a number of these objectives have been realized or are being pursued. These include rehabilitation of VTC institutions and construction of new VTC institutions where the County Government with the support of development partners is doing a commendable job. The formulated policy objectives should be designed to be specific, realistic, and achievable within a maximum period of five years from the start of adoption and implementation.

Many other objectives stated above are yet to be realized. The challenge is not in the policies themselves but rather in the lack of clear strategies, political goodwill, and financial constraints for their implementation. It is therefore important that the VTC policy objectives are backed by effective reformulation of realistic implementation strategies that transcends political cycles because the government is perpetual and should be geared towards posterity considerations for the benefit of all Bomet County residents and Kenyans at large for years to come.