| dc.description.abstract | Industrial and vocational education has been a
subject of discussion since the introduction of
the formal education. The first pioneers In
African education, the missionaries, were interested in christian and vocational education for
Africans. Colonial settlers like Delamere (1926)
were interested in giving natives education which
could make them work with their hands. Phelps
Stroke Report of 1925 recommended training Africans
of high character and tactiful disposition.
Beecher Report 1949 stressed manual work, handwork
and agriculture. Although efforts were made
to give the system of education several factors
worked against its success. Some of the major
factors were, poor and unqualified teachers, lack
.of jobs for programme graduates, attitude of
teachers towards technical skills, but the most
:important factor against the system was opposition
by the rising African nationalists after
World War II
The most interesting development in post-independent
Kenya is that vocational education was abolished
all together. More puzzling fact is that the
abolition was just an independence celebration
honey moon. In 1964" Kenya Government introduced
I service to the nation through acquisition of technical
skills~ the National Youth Service. Three
years after independence the NCCK recommended and
,introduced more vocational education (1966) to
give opportunity to young people who were left in
the educational "gap" and check emigration from
rural areas into towns. A Government sponsored
conference (The Kericho Conference of September
1966) endorsed the NCCK recommendations which were
made in March 1966. The conference recommended
giving school leavers education which directly
related towards self-employment in the rural areas.
The Government finally adopted this programme
(Village Polytechnic) in 1969 and emphasized giving
school leavers technical skills which could enable
'them to engage in gainful employment and at the
same time use these skills to develop mainly rural
communities in which they live.
The outstanding observation is that the justifications advanced for industrial and vocational
education .have remained -the same in post-independent
Kenya as they were in colonial period.
Second, factors which led to the collapse of
colonial vocational education are still there .
Yet only one year after independence, the same
nationalists who opposed vocational education as
the colonists attempted to subjugate Africans
made about turn and introduced the very system.
The purpose of the research was to investigate
what led to the collapse of colonial vocational
education, factors which led to the sudden introduction
of vocational education by the same people
who opposed it, whether there were any innovations
introduced by the post-independent Government
to save the programme from collapse.
Village polytechnic programme was taken as a case
study. The research investigated the curriculum,
teaching methods, personnel, management, success
and constraints experienced by the programme.
The study was an illuminative research. It set
out to look at what the programme originally set
out to do, what has been achieved, reasons why
that success has been there, problems the programme
has encountered and the reasons for such constraints, what the programme can do and how it
can do it.
The research involved 40 village polytechnics.
These projects were selected because they were
the oldest having' been started between 1966 and
1971. The study followed these projects over a
period of 6 years (1974-1981). The first phase of
the research involved the library work. After
the library work, visits were made to all village
polytechnics except those in North Eastern
Province and Turkana District. These visits involved
personal interviews with Government officers
in the field, committee members, managers, instructors
and trainees. Apart from personal interviews
the researcher observed instructors in workshops,
committee members during seminars organized
by the Government, Government officers in their
deliberations during the seminars, managers and
instructors during courses conducted for them.
After the visits, using the information gathered,
the questonnares were constructed. Since each
group had a unique role to play in the programme,
separate from one another, it was decided that the
best thing is to produce separate questionnaires
for each group. This was done except for village
polytechnic trainees who were found to be too
immature to handle a questionnaire. All questionnaires
were sent by post except for village polytechnic graduates. Due to lack of records on
graduates in village polytechnics where they
undertook training, it was decided that the best
means of reaching them was through the local newspapers.
The questionnaires were received from Government
officers, committee members, managers and instructors.
Village polytechnic graduates responded
by means of letter writing. After the questionnaires
were received, they were analyzed and
tabulated. The results were presented in simple
percentage. A second visit was made to village
I polytechnics to verify some of the responses
analyzed from the results. At the same time
further observations were made during seminars
The final results were recorded and presented in
table form.
The study found that the village polytechnic programme
has been successful in changing the attitude of parents and young people towards vocational
education. The programme has also been able to
act as an agency for rural development by attracting
funds both locally and internationally to
the rural communities where they are situated.
There is evidence that ,the majority of programme
graduates are engaged in gainful employment.
Despite few encouraging achievements by some
village polytechnics, the research has revealed
some serious weaknesses in the programme. These
include limited resources, rapid development in
quantity at the expense of quality,management
confusion between the Government on one hand and
the management committee on the other, staff
with irrelevant qualifications at the administrative
and planning level, staff' with low
qualifications academically and professionally at
the operational level, complete lack of curriculum
guidelines, lack of adequate tools and equipment
and low level operation at the programme's Centre
for Research and Training at Karen.
Several recommendations have been made which are
considered fundamental for the reassessment and
reorganization of the programme in order to make
it effective and meet its objectives. These
include immediate evaluation under the auspices
of the Directorate of Personnel Management in
the Office of the President with a view to formulate
a clear policy statement on the programme.
There is an urgent need to re-examine the rate
of numerical increase of 'projects against the resources
available to the programme. There is a need for
personnel analysis. At the management and
planning levels, there is need to recruit people
with relevant qualifications in order to plan
and manage the programme effectively. There is
need to recruit instructors with right qualifications
both academically and professionally.
Curriculum needs immediate attention and terms
of service of instructors need improvement.
Further research could be done"covering systematic
study of village polytechnic graduates.
This is necessary to obtain more information on
graduates who are employed in relevant fields
in which they were trained, how stable they are
in employment, their income as opposed to their
colleagues who joined other firms or institutions.
There is a need for research on the impact of
village polytechnics on the rural communities
in which they are situated | en |
