The Bungoma County government has kick started the construction of a third centre of excellence Vocational Training Centre at Chwele-Kabuchai. Bungoma County Education CEC Dr. Betty Mayeku said that the Vocational training centres in the County are in line with the government’s Big 4 agenda with the aim of producing self reliant youths with skills geared towards addressing high rate of unemployment menace in the County and country at large. “The implementation of centres of excellence is aimed at creating state of the art model training centres & so far the County government has initiated the construction of modern workshops in two centres of excellence, Wekelekha in Musikoma ward and Mteremko in Khalaba ward,” she said.
She disclosed that the department has disbursed Kshs 26.9 million to vocational training centres as grants to cover the tuition fee, funds that were released as conditional grant from the Ministry of Education as confirmed by Chief officer Rose Murunga who called upon the institutions’ principals to use funds prudently & according to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education.
She added that a total of 5000 trainees from 40 registered VTC’s have benefitted from the grants and their aim is investing heavily in equipping the youth in the County with employment skills as a way of alleviating unemployment which is rampant.
In addition to grants, the County government supports trainees by awarding them bursaries which has stirred enrollment of students who join VTCs, a move that has made the Ministry to employ and deploy over 500 instructors with the aim of improving quality of training in the VTCs as indicated by Bungoma County Vocational Training Director Cyrus Wanyonyi. Meanwhile Chwele-Kabuchai ward MCA Barasa Mukhongo has called upon the Ministry officials to consider locals particularly youths in the construction of the centre of excellence in his ward.