Nation Reporter
28 July 2006
Nairobi — A national industrial training overseer is set to invest heavily in modern technology and link up training institutions.
The Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT) will put up a digital library to enable trainees access the latest information and global developments in technology.
Chairman of the National Industrial Training CounciI (NITC), Tom Owuor, said the move was necessary in view of the ever-changing training and manpower needs in the country.
NITC, a tripartite body made of the Ministry of Labour, Federation of Kenya Employers and COTU, is charged with running the directorate. The secretary to the NITC is the Director of Industrial Training, Meshack Kidenda.
Speaking after touring the new Technology Development Centre, funded by the Government of Korea, Mr Owuor, a former executive director of FKE, said Kenya had to borrow a leaf from Korea, which was almost at par economically at independence in 1963. The latter adopted a high productivity, technology-based development strategy as Kenya took on a low-productivity, labour-intensive mode of development. "If DIT is to come out of its pre-dot.com status into the modern information technology age, it will need to network communication systems between its headquarters and its Industrial Training Centres and install a digital library to enable its trainees to access the latest information on new development in technology throughout the world," he said.
The Council has identified lack of the modern training equipment as a major constraint to the development of high-level human resource in Kenya. It will also install a computer-aided design software and computerised textile testing equipment at the DIT's Kenya Textiles Training Institute. This will ensure that high quality training is provided is provided to boost the textile industry.
DIT is also planning to install a computerised diagnostic and testing equipment in the auto workshops at its Industrial Training Centres in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.
Mr Owuor said Kenya could not achieve its desired goal of becoming a fully industrialised nation, because it has not achieved the envisaged six to seven per cent growth since 1997.
Last year, the economy posted a growth of 5.8 per cent, and its targeting a growth rate of six per cent this year.
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