Maravi

Caritas calls for broadening of vocational training

Caritas calls for broadening of vocational training
By George Chellah
Sat 06 Feb. 2010, 04:00 CAT

CARITAS Zambia executive director Sam Mulafulafu yesterday called for more commitment towards the broadening of vocational training institutions in the country. And Mulafulafu said the nation has been very slow to respond to the increasing demand of youths' need for vocational training.

Reacting to Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority (TEVETA) director general Dr Patrick Nkanza's revelation that only six per cent of the total number of pupils who complete Grade 12 are able to access higher education, Mulafulafu said the system was churning out Grade 12s who could not get into colleges.

“It's a problem to get a child into a college now. Now they are being at the mercy of exploitation by these private colleges which have mushroomed then TEVETA itself is not monitoring the standards,” Mulafulafu said.

“So we have most of them just being exploited, they pay to these private colleges they get the qualifications but the job market does not accept them because of those qualifications.

“They want them to go into the traditional government colleges or better recognised colleges. So it's really a problem because it's aggravating the problem of youth unemployment and we need to see more commitment to broadening vocational training institutions.”

He stressed the need for institutions to equip youths with skills that would make them self-sustaining.

“But I think those institutions must also ensure that they prepare the youths not only for employment maybe in the formal sector and so forth. They should be skills that should be able to make them live on their own if they can't get employment into the industry or other formal sectors,” he said.

He said the current situation as far as tertiary education is concerned was a matter of serious concern.

“They should invest more in education, there is more demand for vocational institutions than the infrastructure which is available. We can hardly pinpoint at new colleges that have been constructed since the ones which where constructed by Dr Kenneth Kaunda,” Mulafulafu said.

“And yet the schools have expanded. The number of secondary schools, the number of basic schools have grown so where are all these youths going to be trained?"

Mulafulafu said the nation had been very slow to respond to the increasing demand by youths for vocational training.

Making a presentation during a familiarisation meeting on the operations of TEVETA at the Ministry of Science and Technology, Dr Nkanza noted that out of over 300,000 pupils who complete Grade 12 every year, only six per cent - translating into 14,000 - were able to access tertiary institutions.

"On the issue of training support, there is need to improve access to training because when you look at the figures here, from the schooling Grade 12 we only have three per cent accessing TEVET institutions, one per cent access other tertiary institutions, for instance education colleges, and two per cent are able to go to universities, but you see here 94 per cent of school leavers do not go anywhere," he said.

Dr Nkanza said the scenario had led to a number of pupils enrolling at unregistered institutions.

Labels: CARITAS, TEVETA, VOCATIONAL TRAINING

posted by MrK @ 3:47 PM