Rwanda TVET Board (RTB) has said that up to 84 per cent of youth who have enrolled in short vocational courses since 2017 got jobs within the first nine months of graduation.

This is according to RTB’s assessment of a Skills Development Fund, a project that supported six to 12-month vocational courses in manufacturing, transportation, energy, agriculture, ICT, hospitality and tourism.

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According to Eugene Uwimana, the Skills Development Program Manager at RTB, the Skills Development Fund (SDF) programme got employed within nine months after graduation, about 23,300 people, mainly youth, have graduated since 2017 from the short courses.

"We focus on courses that simply facilitate our trainees to create jobs and or get job opportunities as per market demand,” Uwimana said, adding that there is a huge number of youths not in employment, education or training who are interested in the short vocational courses.

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Through another programme for Youth Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET), RTB government targets to provide short vocational courses to 1,300 people aged between 16 and 30 in the 2023-2024 fiscal year.

Discussing increasing more vocational training, Uwimana said that TVET board is working with development partners to launch another programme similar to the SDF which could see more people trained.

Dorothea Mukankundiye, 24-year-old trainee in Rubavu District who is attending a six-month course on food and beverages operations said she could not hesitate to register when she heard about the short courses.

"If these vocational courses were available to more young people, fewer and fewer of them would be engaged in drug abuse, or even be affected by unwanted pregnancies,” she said.

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Youth who are not in employment, education or training as per 2022 findings of the fifth Rwanda Population and Housing Census by National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) stand at 39.5 per cent. Western Province is the highest with 42.6 percent followed by Southern with 42.2 percent.

For Straton Nshimyumuremyi, the Managing Director of Centre d'Accueil Saint François Xavier in Rubavu, where Mukankundiye trains, vocational training not only provides essential skills but is also a platform for trainees and potential employers.

"It was a very important opportunity for her to network with numerous people, and short courses make the foundation of young people for a better future,” Nshimyumuremyi said.

He said vocational short courses should be introduced in all communities, especially in the districts with high levels of youth unemployment.

"Vocational training has proved useful in the reduction of the unemployment burden on the government because youth get the skills to create jobs for themselves as well as others,” said Augustin Mushakamba,who is in charge of TVET schools in Rubavu District.