The government has moved to make Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) more accessible to citizens, more hands-on oriented, and more responsive to the needs of the labour market.

The plans have been laid out in a new national TVET policy that government approved in September last year, boosting hopes among many stakeholders that they will soon see improvement in quality of skills churned out of the country’s growing number of technical and vocational schools.

One of the experts who sees the new TVET policy as a positive development is John Gaga, the deputy country director of Swisscontact, a development partner.

The organisation is currently working on a 12-year Swiss government-funded programme to support the Government of Rwanda’s efforts to improve access to, quality and relevance of TVET.

Speaking to The New Times, last week, Gaga said, unlike the previous TVET policy adopted in 2008 that was generic and focused more on defining concepts and issues, the new policy is more focused on skills to be transferred to students.

"One of the most interesting features of the new TVET policy is the training approach it has adopted – competence-based training (CBT). Unlike the previous approach (used in our system) where emphasis was put on the number of hours spent on a lesson, chapter or module, the CBT or CBA (competence based approach) focuses on mastery of specific competence by trainees instead of a broad general knowledge,” he said.

Gaga urged government to ensure that appropriate efforts to implement the policy are made since its prescriptions are likely to improve the country’s TVET system.

"Assuming that all pre-requisites or conditions are gathered, I am of the opinion that the approach (CBT) stands to benefit the country by highly enhancing the quality of acquired skills by trainees,” he said.

The Principal of the Integrated Polytechnic Regional Centre in Kigali (IPRC-Kigali), Eng. Diogène Mulindahabi, also expressed optimism about the new policy’s leaning on competence-based training.

"Some of the critical aspects that I am excited about is that all documents emphasise on the competence-based training, linking with other developmental guiding documents, the involvement of the private sector as well as the importance of the trainers in the delivery of quality training,” he said.

Shuhei Saikawa, the education and vocational training programme advisor at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)’s office in Kigali, says the policy is right to focus on the private sector’s needs.

"The policy clearly emphasises the importance of realisation of a TVET responsive to the needs of the labour market. For that, increased employer involvement and engagement in TVET is very important and we have to try to create win-win relationships between industry and TVET,” he said.

He recommended to the government and other stakeholders in the TVET sector to sustain efforts to improve the quality of everyday training at each TVET institution through strengthening of monitoring and reporting systems.Policy framework

To implement the new TVET policy, about 10 objectives to be achieved, have been laid out, including improved understanding of skill demands in the country’s economic sectors, setting up an organised qualification system for TVET (Rwanda TVET Qualification Framework), training professional TVET trainers, and better coordinating TVET initiatives in the country.

Other objectives to be achieved under the policy include improved TVET facilities, more accessible CBT curriculum in schools, positive perceptions for TVET among people, engage employers in TVET, get more girls and people with disabilities to pursue TVET, and set up more sustainable and innovative mechanisms to finance TVET in the country.

Going forward, Rwandans can expect technical training to be more industrial-based and responsive to the country’s development goals, officials at the Workforce Development Authority (WDA) say.

WDA, an agency mandated to provide strategic response to the skills development challenges facing the country across all sectors of the economy, was established after it became clear that lack of skills constrained the country’s plans to fight poverty and promote economic grwoth.

"The current TVET policy is there to respond to the country’s second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS II). This means that all the targets we have set in the policy respond to the required skills to realise EDPRS II goals, especially the one on youth productivity thematic area,” said Irenée

Nsengiyumva, WDA’s deputy director-general in charge of training.

Along with the new TVET policy, the government has designed its three-year implementation plan, from 2015 up to 2018 (the National TVET Strategy), which requires at least Rwf40 billion in funding every fiscal year to be successful.

The Rwf40 billion required annually to implement the TVET policy may sound a lot given that WDA was allocated Rwf29.6 billion in the current financial year, but funding going into TVET is more than the official government envelope since many stakeholders from the private sector and development partners are also injecting money into the sector.

"We are happy with the government support. We also appreciate that the private sector has invested heavily,” WDA director-general Jerome Gasana said.

With the new TVET policy in place, many development partners seem to be happy to keep supporting the sector since government’s plans it have been made clear.

One of the interested development partners is Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), which has funded the construction of a $5-million centre in Kigali for training TVET teachers.

The centre, dubbed Rwanda Technical Teacher Institute (RTTI), is being constructed at IPRC-Kigali in Kicukiro.

"KOICA agrees with the overall direction of the TVET policy and objectives. It is well organised, to present a clear vision for the future TVET system of Rwanda. In this context, KOICA will make an effort to cooperate with the Ministry of Education for effective and efficient implementation of the TVET policy,” said Jeyun Choi, deputy country director of KOICA.

The government has targeted to have 60 per cent of students graduating from nine-year basic education enrolled into TVET schools by 2017, up from the current 40 per cent enrolment. The number of TVET schools in the country has also been growing, from 60 in 2010 to 365 in 2014, according to statistics.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw