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{
    "id": 945873,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/945873/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 198,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tigania West, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mutunga",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13495,
        "legal_name": "John Kanyuithia Mutunga",
        "slug": "john-kanyuithia-mutunga"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to this very important Motion. I would like to start by thanking Hon. John Munene Wambugu for bringing this Motion. As a country, we are in a stage where we are losing a large proportion of our youth who do not transit to the tertiary education levels. The reason is that they fail at Form Four. When they fail at Form Four, they are not able to proceed either to middle level colleges or to the universities. It is important to note that the Government has made some laudable efforts in coming up with Technical Training Institutes (TTIs) across the country where in every sub- county, we will have a TTI. The moment we have them in place, we should also look at the other side – the demand side of the technicians that we will produce. Many of our youth are not very much interested in joining the TTIs. As Members of Parliament and leaders of this country, we should be asking ourselves why the youth are not very keen to join TTIs or middle-level colleges. First of all, if you look at the traditional colleges like Kenya Medical Training Colleges (KMTCs) the Teachers Training Colleges (TTCs) and other colleges that train technicians, we realise that there are serious restrictions on the method that is used to usher them in. So, most of the youth are filtered out. On the other hand, when it comes to TTIs, we have a problem of job absorption in the job market. We know for sure that for a country to get at the stage of development it needs to have more technicians than managers. In this country, we have focussed more on university education. I would like to laud the recent reforms witnessed in university education. In the past, university education has been viewed as the only way to have people succeed in life. You must not have a degree to succeed in life! In this life even technicians are required. At the stage of development, we need more of technicians than managers who are trained at the university level. We are discharging a large proportion of labour force, but there are no jobs for that labour force. Therefore, it forces Kenyans to make choices as to which colleges they go to. In other words, we need to make it attractive for the technicians to join the technical training institutes. How do we make it attractive? We need to have a structured absorption mechanism whereby the technicians can also be stratified in levels where they are able to join various job markets in terms of construction. We need to restrict ourselves when we are doing projects by hiring our own people. We have projects going on in this country, but they are taken up by foreigners. It seems to be okay because the foreigners hire many people from outside this country. That presents a problem because we lack absorption of our own people. It is a move that serves to dissuade the youth from getting job opportunities. That is the reason we are not able to absorb as many youths as possible. We are unable to train the youth accordingly. On technical training, as a country, we should consider improving the skills of our youth once we set up the TTIs… I know of countries like Australia which require skilled labour force. They need carpenters, masons, plumbers and all sorts of TTI trained people, but these technicians must pass through some assessment so that they fit the job market in terms of skills that they need. We have not put that in place as a country. Therefore, for us to sell our labour The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}