The newly established Tuskegee University required a radical, visionary and strategic leadership, given the location and the community of people of colours. Lewis Adams couldn’t find anyone fit for the role of a teacher but Booker T Washington at the time. At the time of inception, the teacher being the young Booker T Washington (1881) had already figured out that the ignorance and lack faced by the community could only be beaten by the right knowledge transfer. Thus, necessitated the high percentage of vocational education as compared to theory if not equal.
Economically, it was envisioned to empower the previous slaves and politically was to equip them with the necessary resources that could serve as a stepping stone towards self-reliance and self-sufficiency. During the consultative meetings in 2011, the former education minister Dr Abraham Iiyambo resonated with Booker T Washington by reminding us about the importance of vocational education. He said, rather paraphrasing, that “his dream was to see more vocational skills transferred and expansion of the centers thereof.” I can hear him reverberating and echoing the need and urgency of vocational education.
The construction industry, mining and other handy industries have taken advantage of our unskilled masses. Malls, roads, rails, houses, carpentries have been built using an approach of on-the-job training by the many owners of such industries. But we still see our vocational training centers punching below the economic weight over the past thirty years. Schools have attempted to integrate vocational subjects just like they have done with Arts and Physical Education and have not yielded any results. Are these not some of the economical means to make us realize Vision 2030 and the pronouncement documented in Harambee Prosperity Plan and NDPs? Can the reason for the delay of fully implementing these initiatives be an expense that comes with it? Are there no experts to help us realise this? It is in answering these questions that we can be able to forge a way forward with our education.
It is indeed imperative for us to look back and thank those who spearheaded these initiatives and documented them for us to take action and bring to reality what have been frozen within each one of us as potential. However, if annually we have a large number of school dropouts and those who do not make it to the universities, do we need to use symbols entirely as a yardstick at the vocational level? We have a choice to make and it is urgent, for us to reduce flooding the streets with unskilled people – if the admission requirements can be relaxed to accommodate those who do not meet very high requirements. Another suggestion is not new but it will be mentioned to serve as a reminder: early introduction of vocational subjects in primary at least as early as grade 5. In such a way we will have something to fall back on at the first exit level of secondary school.
The benefits
Improved enrollment while lowering the dropouts as the education will then be inclusive. The schools will become self-sufficient as the issues of fixing chairs, pipe fitting, basic infrastructures maintenance could be performed by students as their practicals. Learners’ self-worth and esteem will be increased as each one becomes a prominent player. The management of the vocational schools must restructure and improve the curriculum to not train institutional-based rather industry-based. The three- job attachment or internship is not enough. Students must be exposed to the day-to-day demand of the customers and innovation. We missed out big time on industrialization but it is not late, we can set up an anchor now. We can’t jump the gun to more technology if the basics of manufacturing are not addressed, and vocational skills can best address this.
Instead of us relying on the old system, we can substitute it with apprenticeship where we learn by doing or producing products to be consumed in the market but under the strict supervision of the experts. In a way, vocational training will not rely entirely on government funding but partners and income they may generate from what they would produce. The economic benefit of this is, one becomes independent as they could be self-employed.
But we must be careful to equip these apprentices with robust entrepreneurial skills while students and not only train them to become technicians. The small businesses they will establish must become sustainable and expandable. If we say it is expensive to do this, I would rather say that it had been hard years, particularly the government carrying this burden financially. I would rather suggest controversially that we sacrifice from the beginning and gain our economic freedom eventually. This will as well quicken the value addition to our natural resources as vocational training will be linked to science, research and technology institutions. It is doable if we have the political and economic will, but we must admit that it is not for the faint at heart.