Niche Project on “Enhancing the Capacity of Kenya School of Agriculture for Improved Practical and Labour Market-Oriented Agricultural TVET Education” is a Nuffic funded project, executed by Q-Point B.V., which outcome at policy priority level is to contribute to increased sustainable agricultural production, employment in the private sector, a better business climate and better performing male and female entrepreneurs in view of Dutch trade and investments. The outcome of the project for KSA is to produce competent graduates and agribusiness entrepreneurs, for all genders, with practical and labour-market oriented skills.
Since the project kicked off at the School in January 2017, several milestones have been achieved. The first major achievement was the development of a five-year phase strategic plan (SP) from 2017 to 2021. The SP did not only charter the development path for the school but more importantly has been a critical reference document in the formulation and development of a cabinet memo. The memo has seen the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives plan for adequate resource allocation for the school. Similarly, the SP played a pivotal role in successful negotiation for additional technical staff for the School. While the School had only seven technical staff by 2017, the development of SP that elaborately defined the mandate, core functions, vision, mission and situational analysis, provided pivotal justification for an additional 25 technical staff.
Being a capacity-building project, technical staff at the School have been trained in requisite areas that are key in enhancing their training programmes development, delivery, and evaluation and review capacities. Some of the courses the technical staff have been trained on including didactical skills – Problem Based Learning (PBL), training methodologies, development of training courses materials, course programme development, curriculum development, curriculum implementation and review processes and change management/leadership training. Besides the short training, several staff are now undertaking their MSc and PhD studies courtesy of the project. For experiential learning, a team of six technical officers were sponsored by the project to visit the Netherlands.
The team visited TVET institutions and Applied University in the Netherlands for learning and experience sharing. More importantly, the visit was a clear practical eye-opener in visualizing and influencing KSA direction in the development of appropriate and market-responsive training programmes. Meanwhile, the project also sponsored 25 Technical Staff for an intensive ten weeks Instructors Course offered by Kenya Technical Trainers College (KTTC). Apart from strengthening the staff training capacity, the instructor’s course is a mandatory requirement before one is registered as a Technical, Vocational, Education and Training Authority (TVETA) certified trainer and assessor.
Information Communication and Technology (ICT) is an evolving platform on which most learning modules are being anchored. Towards this end, the project technically supported the school to develop a robust ICT Strategic Plan whose main thrust is on people, processes and technology. The ICT SP addresses five strategic level objectives of trainee’s centricity, improved management decision making processes, improved teaching and learning experiences, improved communication and innovation and opportunities identification. A five-year implementation framework to guide phased implementation is provided within the ICT SP. Ideally, implementation of the ICT SP will definitely provide KSA with a blended learning platform to achieve a competitive edge in the delivery of training packages.
Being a relatively new institution by 2017, KSA needed enhanced visibility amongst its national and international stakeholders. The development of the communication plan through the project provided not only the much-needed answer to this quest but more importantly elevated stakeholder’s confidence in the School as a Centre of Excellence in Agricultural Skills Training, Value Chain Development, Technology Incubation and Dissemination in Kenya and beyond. From the plan, the School has already installed visibility signposts, developed flyers and marketing brochures while plans are at advanced stages in the development of the KSA Website and web portal as well as social media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, youtube, Instagram amongst others.
One of the game-changing aspects of the Niche Project is on Labour Market Needs Assessment (LMNA) survey. Through the project, KSA technical staff were adequately trained in all critical phases of LMNA from stakeholders’ identification, development, pre-testing, refining, the actual administration of questionnaires and ultimate data analysis and findings report development. The findings of the LMNA carried out at KSA would finally be subjected to the stakeholders for review and validation. The validated outputs shall provide useful reference benchmarks that would guide the development of market-responsive training courses at the School.
One of the output of the project is to enhance the capacity of KSA to develop and upgrade gender-sensitive and entrepreneurial curricula that integrate gender elements at all technical and administrative functional levels. Courtesy of the project, the school has undertaken rapid gender assessment as well as developing a draft gender mainstreaming strategy. Implementation of the strategy is ongoing and has seen the School appoint a gender officer alongside the establishment of gender committee. The committee is tasked with implementation of the strategy identified action points. Achievement made in this line area at the School include establishment of baby crèche and gender based and sexual harassment incidences reporting boxes.