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STAKEHOLDERS MUST POPULARIZE VOCATIONAL TRAINING AMONG THE YOUTH TO REDUCE UNEMPLOYMENT IN KENYA.

About 50, 000 graduates are churned out of public and private universities in Kenya every year piling onto the number of unemployed youth in the country estimated at 2.3 million, according to the ministry of Education. Kenya’s unemployment rate standing at 40% is a ticking time bomb that needs to be addressed urgently by stakeholders both from the public and private sectors of our economy. The Principal Secretary for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Dr Dinah Mwinzi, in a TVET forum, said youth unemployment can be reduced if most of the ‘hustling’ population had different technical skills. This, she reiterated, will also accelerate achievement of Kenya’s aspirations on labor market needs for a middle-income economy.
It is interesting to note that only one in every ten youth secures gainful employment yearly. The other nine find their source of livelihood by either engaging in small businesses or by expending their sweat in the jua kali artisan sector. Globally, unemployment causes debilitating poverty levels among families and as a country we need to mitigate its devastating effects by urgently popularizing vocational training among our youth.

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Developed economies like Germany and China are anchored on the pillar of vocational skills training and we can see the dividends these countries are reaping from a mindset shift. Vocational education is education that prepares people to work in a trade, a craft, as a technician, or in professional vocations such as engineering, accountancy, nursing, medicine, architecture, or law. Craft vocations are usually based on manual or practical activities and are traditionally non-academic but related to a specific trade or occupation. Vocational education is sometimes referred to as career education or technical education. In most African nations and more so Kenya, Vocational Skills Training for a long while, has been given a wide berth by youth due to its tedious and unpopular mode of dirtying hands as a means to an end. As a country we need to change this ill-advised mindset very fast if we are serious about reducing unemployment and pushing our country into the club of developed nations by the year 2030.
Our population is growing exponentially yet there is no match in figures of new opportunities being created in the economy to fill in the increasing jobs gap. Additionally, Kenyan youth lack the will to acquire market relevant vocational skills from our tertiary institutions. Instead, we are witnessing a mad rush to acquire degrees in Medicine, Law and Business Management courses. These twin factors are compounding the campaign to reduce unemployment in the country and that is why there is a serious skills gap in the Kenyan economy
Parents, guardians and sponsors have every right to place high expectations on students they are offering education financing. However, we all need to appreciate the fact that not all students can find jobs from the three prestigious disciplines of Medicine, Law and Business Management. Our economy is still young and it has its own capacity limits and can only absorb the number of graduates it can manage. Today, you should not be surprised to see a placard wielding job seeker in our streets who happens to be an Actuarial Science alumnus.
We do not have enough jobs in our economy and a mindset shift is urgently needed. Youth need to be re-programmed to become job creators and not job seekers. The radical shift ought to start at the curriculum development stage, career counselling departments in school, church mentorship forums and the relevant Government ministries as well. Just like Agri-business is being marketed as a cool business option in the media, stakeholders ought to come up with a well-oiled vocational skills training marketing campaign that has a secretariat similar to the one that manages Brand Kenya.
Unemployment is a disaster that has devastating effects on families and the society at large. One way of increasing our country’s manufacturing capacities is by popularizing vocational skills training. In return, the Kenyan economy will improve its production capacity that will later on translate to more exports of finished goods abroad.
A fund needs to be set aside that will be utilized in periodical upgrading exercises of our existing technical and vocational institutions. This move will help in increasing the supply of adequate and well educated manpower to our manufacturing sector. The stability that vocational skills training brings to the economy will help pull out as many youth as possible from the debilitating effects of unemployment.
It is commendable to note that various manufacturing units in the country are now partnering with vocational training centers in a bid to up-skill their employees who later on stand a better chance of securing permanent employment contracts. Examples are ample also of development partners who are joining hands with local corporate entities to offer vocational skills training to youth through their CSR departments like for example the Housing Finance Foundation Iinitiative. All these are proactive measures aimed at reversing the worrying unemployment estimates in the country.
The Vocational Skills Training Movement began in 24th June 2013 and since then we have constantly been urged to positively embrace it by leaders both from the national and county level. Worryingly, demand for skills upgrade among the youth is gaining tract in a rather subdued way. Funding for TVET has been set aside. About Kshs 2.5Billion in the current financial year, we agree but enrollment levels at our vocational training institutions still remain low.
Guardians and instructors need to be advised that up-skilling is the only viable valve youth can use to escape the unforgiving shackles of unemployment. We should therefore not sit back and watch as our youth continue making wrong career moves. Continued resistance to vocational skills training is a worrying trend and needs to be checked so that we may achieve our country’s sustainable development goals much faster.
Solutions to this worrying trend are many and here is a summary of the most urgent ones. One, stakeholders in the manufacturing sector should now be involved in curriculum development as a way of coming up with market relevant course outlines. Two, the ministry of vocational training with the help of other relevant ministries should sell the benefits of vocational skills training in the main stream media with alumni of technical institutions as vocational training brand ambassadors. This will help invite more youth to acquire vocational skills training since they will have seen and heard successful self-employment stories from vocational training graduates currently in the job market.
Three, instructors at all vocational training centers must be aware of the enormous responsibility on their shoulders of transforming Kenya into a developed economy through vocational skills training. Relevant stakeholders should ensure that instructors are positively motivated to teach, are adequately remunerated and should come up with policies that will ensure loyalty to vocational skills training.
We should all agree in unison that vocational skills training is the best remedy so far to youth unemployment and if Germany and China succeeded in implementing it, I do not see why Kenya cannot.

 

Author: [@mgachanjah] Alex Maina Gachanjah via twitter

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I stumpled upon some nice terminal client as I was moppering around the web. First, it's dope. Built using python's prompt toolkit, this client

auto-completes sql queries, saving me time to type all that. That part where you 'tab' in the terminal while using other apps, it's now possible while this client is installed.

 

Mycli

It's great. Easier life.

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Like above, see how it does it? Simple. Hope you like it.

To get, no biggie.. just apt.

 

sudo apt install mycli

 

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Question: I was downloading a large file using SCP, but the download transfer failed in the middle because my laptop got disconnected from the network. Is there a way to resume the interrupted SCP transfer where I left off, instead of downloading the file all over again? Answer: Originally based on BSD RCP protocol, SCP (Secure copy) is a mechanism that allows you to transfer a file between two end points over a secure SSH connection. However, as a simple secure copy protocol, SCP does not understand range-request or partial transfer like HTTP does. As such, popular SCP implementations like the scp command line tool cannot resume aborted downloads from lost network connections. If you want to resume an interrupted SCP transfer, you need to rely on other programs which support range requests. One popular such program is rsync. Similar to scp, rsync can also transfer files over SSH. Suppose you were trying to download a file (bigdata.tgz) from a remote host remotehost.com using scp, but the SCP transfer was stopped in the middle due to a stalled SSH connection. You can use the following rsync command to easily resume the stopped transfer. Note that the remote server must have rsync installed as well. $ cd /path/to/directory/of/partially_downloaded_file $ rsync -P -rsh=ssh userid@remotehost.com:bigdata.tgz ./bigdata.tgz The "-P" option is the same as "--partial --progress", allowing rsync to work with partially downloaded files. The "-rsh=ssh" option tells rsync to use ssh as a remote shell. Once the command is invoked, rsync processes on local and remote hosts compare a local file (./bigdata.tgz) and a remote file (userid@remotehost.com:bigdata.tgz), determine among themselves what portion of the file is not the same, and transfer the discrepancy to either end. In this case, missing bytes in the partially downloaded local file is downloaded from a remote host. Add a comment
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Binti Kenya

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www.binti.co.ke is the largest online wholesale platform for ladies’ fashion items and accessories, in Kenya and growing fast across Africa.

If you are in campus, consider yourself fierce, a go-getter and want to earn some extra cash, Binti Kenya is inviting you to join its field marketing team.  

So, what will I actually be doing?

Your daily tasks will include:

  • Spreading the word about the items available on the Binti platform.  
  • Securing sales
  • Attending to queries and getting feedback from customers
  • Advising customers on their purchases
  • Helping with field promotions
  • Following up on order confirmations and deliveries
  • Keeping track of any changes in customers’ taste, preference, and demand for new hot selling products and pitching ideas to Binti.
  • Making sure sales targets are met.

Qualifications

www.binti.co.ke is the wholesale online platform of choice for anyone within Kenya that is looking for ladies’ fashion items and accessories at wholesale prices.  We fully support the need for young people in Kenya to become financially independent and are offering you, the campus student, the opportunity to achieve exactly that.  As such, please indicate the university/college/institution you are currently enrolled in and the campus where you are located in your application to this job advert. E.g. University of Nairobi (Kikuyu campus).  Other characteristics of the ideal sales and marketing affiliates include:

  1. Ongoing studies at any University/College/learning Institution in Kenya (both private or public).  
  2. The drive to become financially independent
  3. You are conversant with women’s fashion trends
  4. Preferably between the age of 18 to 35 years.
  5. Can provide impeccable customer service
  6. Great communication skills

If you have the qualifications listed above, kindly send a cover letter (max 250 words) and resume (max 3 pages) highlighting why we should have you on our team.  All applications should be sent to hr@binti.co.ke by Wednesday, 12th July 2017.  Applications that do not include a cover letter and campus location of the applicant will not be reviewed.   

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Binti Kenya

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www.binti.co.keis a wholesale online platform for ladies’ fashion items and accessories. If you consider yourself fierce and a go-getter, Binti Kenya is inviting you to join its field marketing team.  

So, what will I actually be doing?

Your daily tasks will include:

  • Spreading the word about products and services available on 
  • Securing sales 
  • Attending to queries and getting feedback from customers
  • Advising customers on their purchases and other hot selling products on 
  • Helping with field promotions
  • Following up on order confirmations and deliveries
  • Keeping track of any changes in customers’ taste, preference, and demand for new hot selling products and pitching ideas to Binti.
  • Making sure sales targets are met.

Qualifications

www.binti.co.ke is the wholesale online platform of choice for anyone within Kenya and East Africa that is looking for ladies’ fashion items and accessories at wholesale prices.  We therefore require sales and marketing affiliates from every major town in Kenya.  As such, please indicate where you are located in your application to this job advert.  Other characteristics of the ideal sales and marketing affiliates include:

  1. Diploma in sales and marketing.
  2. At least one years’ experience in sales and marketing.
  3. Well conversant with women’s fashion trends.
  4. Preferably between the age of 20 to 35 years.
  5. Can provide impeccable customer service.
  6. Great communication skills.

If you have the qualifications listed above, kindly send a cover letter (max 250 words) and resume (max 3 pages) highlighting why we should have you on our team.  All applications should be sent to hr@binti.co.ke by Wednesday, 12th July 2017.  Applications that do not include a cover letter and location of the applicant will not be reviewed.   

 

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Oops...Almost forgot to say something about me. But anyway, I'm that guy, yule Msee, who'll sort out your techie issue and hails from the land of milk and honey. Not forgetting the bitter herbs too.

This is what am best at. Feel free to ask something. 

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