Government to soon start career centres in universities to boost students’ employability.

Education CS Amb. Amina Mohammed receives a gift portrait of herself done by a student at the M-PESA Foundation Academy Thika. Looking on is Thika Town MP Eng. Patrick Wainaina.

The government is in the process of rolling out a programme that will pave way for universities to set up career centres with the aim of enhancing students’ employability and creating graduates who are more agile and have a solid understanding of how the workplace works.

This was revealed by the Education CS Amb. Amina Mohammed at the M-PESA Foundation Academy Thika as she launched this year’s “The Great Debaters Contest” for secondary schools on Sunday.

“Soon we are going to set up career centres in all our public universities to equip our graduates with the necessary skills for the job market. Although we release plenty of graduates every year, employers say they do not always have the additional skills needed. We need to prepare them for the idea of moving across jobs and sectors,” she said.

In this regard, the CS added, the Ministry of Education was rolling out reforms in the education curriculum so that it conformed to the demands of the current job market. She invited students to her ministry with the aim of introducing them to these new reforms and familiarising themselves with the changes that were going on in the sector.

Amb. Amina appreciated the contribution of the patron of this debate, Julie Gichuru, for her contribution in nurturing talents and bringing about national cohesion through debating and social interaction among students from different backgrounds and localities.

Thika Town MP Eng. Patrick Wainaina echoed the minister’s sentiments by noting that a lot of emphasis was needed to drive learning institutions to churn out graduates whose degree disciplines matched their employability rather than just being knowledge based.

He added that the country needed to develop a model that took into account the work-readiness and flexibility of graduates.

“We need to relook into the current education system to ensure that the curriculum resonates with the job market. Currently, what we teach is more of knowledge-based rather than being competence-based. The responsibility for filling this gap in knowledge must be shared between businesses and universities, with awareness on both sides of the complexities of the other,” said Wainaina.

The first time MP challenged the students to always believe in themselves and aim in achieving their goals irrespective of their circumstances.

On his part, Stephen walker who is the director of the M-PESA Foundation Academy, stressed on the need to teach entrepreneurship skills among the students as not everyone will be lucky to get employed.

“We expect that after four years at this institution, our students will be in a position to go into business. We endeavour to diversify education delivery and not to churn out one particular type of students. Our vision is to raise up transformative leaders through innovative education techniques,” said walker.

Among those present included Thika West Deputy County Director of Education Ronald Mbogo, Brand Kenya Board Chairman Geoffrey Shimanyula,  Ag. Director Consumer Business Unit at Safaricom Charles Wajohi and other senior staff of Safaricom PLC and Safaricom Foundation.