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Last week ended with a two-day international TVET symposium in Kigali after various discussions on challenges facing the implementation of TVET and setting recommendations for advancement. Among the issues addressed include, improving competence based training of trainers in order to fill the existing void between delivery standards and occupational outputs. The experts also pointed out need for incentives across all trainers to improve TVET, enrolling more girls and improving the collaboration between the private and public sector. In regional news, Mount Kenya University (MKU) entered into partnerships with several universities in the United Kingdom in its quest to improve its academic programmes. This decision followed the university team’s visit to the UK two weeks ago where several agreements with local universities were reached. Simon Gicharu, the MKU chairman, said the visit also secured more funding for research in the institution and there would be exchange programmes between MKU lecturers and those from the UK universities. Some of the universities MKU will be partnering with include Coventry, Bradford, University of Nottingham, Nottingham Friends University and Regent’s University. Meanwhile the upcoming MKU’s institute for oil and gas also received a major boost when the management of Coventry University agreed to help it to design the curriculum. MKU also agreed on a partnership with Bradford University in offering peace and security studies. The university also secured hundreds of books that will be used by students studying law at the institution’s school of law located in Parklands, Nairobi. Dr Gicharu and Kenya’s High Commissioner to the UK Lazarus Amayo also met the global chairman of Standard Chartered Bank Sir John Peace and CEO of Nottingham City Ian Curry. Elsewhere around the world, a study has linked poor exam results to pupils playing video games over their social media use. Researchers found that playing video games is more likely to have a negative impact on a child’s GCSE results than using social media. Around 77 per cent of 14 to 16 year-olds who play games rarely achieved five ‘good’ GCSE grades, compared to 41 per cent who play games twice a day, the report claimed. Despite social media being a much more popular activity among those examined, with 81 per cent on young people using networks daily, no link was found between intensive social networking and poor exam performance. The study, conducted on students within Northern Ireland by the National Children’s Bureau, found that four in 10 spent four or more hours a day online during their GCSE year, with those who used a computer for three hours daily to complete homework obtaining the best GCSE results - with 79 per cent achieving A* to C grades. Students without internet access at home were found to be at a significant disadvantage, with only 29 per cent obtaining five good grades compared to 68 per cent of those with home WiFi.

Education

Around the globe