Influence of Financing on Performance of Technical, Vocational Education, and Training Programs in Kenya: a Case of Nairobi County

Abstract

The history of TVET can be traced to the early 1990. Kenya through the ministry of education has championed the adoption of TVETs with proper financing so that it can produce highly trained and skilled workforce to power its ambitious industrialization sector to achieve vision 2030. The government of Kenya envisions to enrol 20% of the youth population to TVET institutions by the year 2030. The study investigated the influence of financing sources on performance of TVET programs in Nairobi Kenya. To do this, the study sought; to establish the influence of HELB financing on performance of TVET programs; to assess how self-financing influences performance of TVET programs; to examine the extent to which donor funding influences performance of TVET programs. The theory of Human Capital and the Theory of Socialist Economies guided the study. This was a descriptive survey where quantitative and qualitative data was collected using self-administered open and closed-ended questionnaires from a homogeneous proportionate random sample of 377 representing a population of 17,940 learners from 6 TVETs within Nairobi. A pilot test of 37 students from Kiambu Institute of Science and Technology was drawn from 10% of the sample size and used for pilot testing where the Cronbach coefficients alpha of 0.825(82.5%) was established. The questionnaire return rate was 90%. Findings indicated that HELB financing had a significant influence on performance of TVETs with a correlation of 0.426, self-financing had a correlation of 0.289 while donor financing had a correlation of 0.358. The findings, revealed that any unit increase in HELB financing would lead to 0.334 increase in performance of TVETs. The variable yielded a p-value 0.000 implying significance since it was less than 0.05. The researcher concluded that HELB financing has an influence on performance of TVETs. Self-financing has an influence on enrolment to TVETs though it comes with negative copying mechanisms where some parents will sell their assets to finance education. In addition, the study concluded that self-financing has insignificant influence on performance of TVET programs. Donor financing has an influence on enrolments to TVETs as well as class retention with limited influence on completion. The study recommends that policy makers should review avenues of scaling up higher education financing to reach more potential beneficiaries in order to improve on the timeliness and disbursement of the funds. In addition, they should seek to assure beneficiaries of full funding for their desired programs.