By Grace MuGoya

Tracking progress on what is being done to ensure that players in promoting the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) education system are on track is key towards achieving government target on TVET. Government target is to ensure 60 percent of students that complete O-Level join TVET and receive quality education in hands-on-skills that will enable them get to the job market and create jobs.

To achieve this, a lot must be done given the current stand to start with the enrollment rate, accessibility of TVET considering the number of technical and vocational institutes, available infrastructure and equipment among others necessary in making the TVET education system effective and efficient.

The Ministry of Education through the Workforce Development Authority (WDA) in collaboration with the Private Sector Federation (PSF) and other partners including Belgium Common TVET Support Programme (PAFP), Swiss Development Cooperation, KOICA, and GIZ were last week engaged in various activities as part of TVET Week. This Week is aimed at among others tracking the progress made in ensuring that the government target is met.

The Director General of WDA, Jerome Gasana says the government is committed to providing TVET quality education and that various measures have been put in place to that effect. As part of the activities to mark the TVET Week, Gasana led a delegation to the Southern Province to tour various TVET activities in Huye district.

He says that through a quality TVET system, the country is set to promote the "Made in Rwanda” products— emphasizing that this will enable human resource mobility within the region and beyond. The country has embarked on value addition to be competitive on regional and international markets. In the move to increase access to TVET, there are currently 386 technical and vocational schools across the country.

The government is also putting up what is called Rwanda Technical Teacher Institute (RTTI) at the Integrated Polytechnic Regional Center (IPRC) Kigali. This is another initiative that is expected to boost the quality of TVET. RTTI is expected to create competence boosting for in-service vocational and technical trainers as well as increase the number of professional trainers. The structure is one of the many initiatives expected to be implemented in line with IPRC Kigali’s Master plan that will boost its capacity to offer and accommodate more students given the growing rate of enrollment.