Kenyan youths pursue construction jobs in a market-driven manner

Elizabeth Bosibori, 20, is only three months into her two-year on-the-job training, but she is already excited about her plumbing skills.

She has been out on the field regularly understudying technicians drilling and installing boreholes or repairing water treatment systems in upmarket neighbourhoods in Nairobi and Kiambu counties since joining Davis & Shirtliff, a leading water and energy solutions provider in East Africa, as an apprentice in January.

“My mentor assigns a technician to me to ensure I learn as much as I should whenever we are in the field. Some of the most exciting moments for me so far have been accompanying the teams implementing borehole projects,” says Ms Bosibori, who is also studying for a plumbing diploma at Don Bosco Boys Training Institute in Nairobi.

She is one of more than 80 young Kenyans, the majority of whom are from Nairobi’s informal settlements, who were enrolled in a skills programme in November last year. Apprentices spend one week a month taking theory lessons in a vocational training institute and three weeks learning on the job at a company.

Swiss contact, a development NGO that works with the private sector to alleviate poverty in developing countries, launched the Propel A program as part of its efforts to combat youth unemployment in Kenya.

The program is based on the Swiss dual approach to learning, in which training institutions and the private sector collaborate to develop technical training curriculum.

Trainees in this model spend 25% of their time in class and 75% of their time gaining hands-on experience in the industry.

The Swiss Minister for Economic Affairs, Helene Budliger Artieda, who visited Don Bosco during her visit to Kenya last month, attributed Switzerland’s low unemployment rate of 1.8 percent to market-driven training.

“Our experiences show that private sector involvement in training is key, as it ensures the diploma holders are trained according to the needs of the labour market. These professionals are an essential part of the success of the Swiss economy and explain the low unemployment rate, including among the youth,” said Ms Artieda.

Between 2002 and 2013, Kenya seemed to downplay the importance of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in its education policy, converting a number of mid-level colleges into constituent campuses of public universities.

The two succeeding administrations, including the current one, have been seen to prioritize TVET in job creation efforts by offering students fee subsidies and access to Higher Education Loans Board financing. (Helb).

However, the industry continues to complain about a mismatch between jobs and skills, which frequently forces them to retrain recruits from local vocational education colleges.

According to Lillian Mwai, Swiss contact’s country director in Kenya, the Propel A program was designed to train plumbers and electricians to help close the skills gap in construction, which has seen remarkable growth in recent years due to an increase in public and private investments in infrastructure development.

“We knew about the growth in the construction sector, but not so much the pain points. When we talked to industry players, we discovered there was a serious mismatch between the skills needed by the job market and what the training institutions were producing. Some companies told us about their experiences dropping multi-million-shilling contracts because they lacked the right personnel to execute the projects,” says Ms Mwai.

A Ministry of Labour 2020 survey that looked at the skills gap at the enterprise level in the informal sector—where more than 80% of Kenyans work—found that difficulty in finding desired technical skills was the reason they had vacancies.

Approximately 55.9 percent of firms with labor shortages in the architecture and construction sectors cited difficulty in obtaining desired skills such as plumbing.

Swiss contact approached a number of local plumbing and electrical installation companies in 2021 with a proposal to try out the Swiss-style dual apprentice training, and their representatives toured Switzerland to see how the program works.

Twenty plumbing and electrical installation companies bought into the idea and hired apprentices in November, providing them with stipends and paying their tuition at Don Bosco Boys Training Institute and Eastlands College of Technology.

Aston Mwenda, who chose to join the program rather than pursue an electrical degree at a public university, says he was drawn in by the high prospects of employment upon completion of the two-year program and the quality of training he is receiving at Mehta Electricals in Nairobi’s Industrial Area.

“As a junior technician, I have learnt a lot from my co-workers already,” says Mr Mwendwa.

“Before I joined the programme, I was a self-taught electrician, and I would fix a few electrical problems for households in Githurai where I live. But here you get to learn industry standards, not do things the jua kali (informal) way.”