Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) for poverty reduction

By Dr. Charles M.M. Ondieki

1.
Introduction
Education, skills development and technical training are central to agricultural and rural
employment. They prepare mostly young people for work in the formal and informal sector in
rural areas and thus play an important role in poverty reduction. The better the training and
the more refined the skills are in terms of human capital, the higher the income and returns
and the better the rural livelihoods.
Public and private providers of education and training poorly serve rural youth
especially in when comparing opportunities available to urban youth. The extent of urban bias
in the provision of publicly funded education and training services is large in most low- income
developing countries (Bennell 2007). About 130 million young people in developing countries
(15-24 years) are classified as illiterate with women representing 59 per cent (UNESCO
2008). The high number of illiterate youth and those with low schooling are mostly living in
rural areas and are badly prepared for productive work (Atchoarena & Gasperini 2003.
Bennell (1999) found that vocational education and training (VET) was largely absent in most
government and donor poverty reduction strategies in developing countries. This
marginalization of VET is due to a lack of donor investment and inaction by many
governments. While there is a need to adjust development efforts and build the human assets
and capabilities of the poor, vocational education and training has been receiving less and not
more attention.
Policies and approaches to technical and vocational education and training (TVET) have
undergone major re-adjustment in the 1970s and 1980s (Colclough 1980; Psacharopoulos
1994), including the seminal 1980 World Bank Education Sector Policy Paper (World Bank
1980). As a result, resources were put into primary education and public provision of
technical and vocational education and training was reduced. The seminal article on vocational
training written by Foster in 1965 is again receiving attention. He described the Vocational
School Fallacy in developing countries and stated that it it might be more fruitful to
encourage small-scale vocational training schemes closely associated with the actual
ongoing developments and quite divorced from the formal educational system (Foster 1965, p.
154). Foster also suggested that the burdens of vocational training should be shifted to
those groups who are actually demanding skilled labour of various types (p. 158) thus
advocating a people centred and needs driven approach to vocational training.
There is a link between poverty reduction and skills training and increased growth, productivity
and innovation, in particular for the informal sector (Fluitman 2002). Skills development
improves output, quality, diversity and occupational safety and improves health, thereby
increasing incomes and livelihoods of the poor. It also helps to develop social capital and
strengthens knowledge about informal sector associations, rural organizations and governance.
According to human capital theory, the better educated the agricultural labour, the higher their
productivity (Atchoarena et. al. 2003).

The vocational training programmes in rural areas that appear most successful in terms of
enhancing employability and contributing to the human development of their trainees are those
where teaching activities are directly targeted at specific groups. Vocational and skills training
need to be comprehensive in nature, thereby focusing on the needs and potential of the
trainees, aim for social equity in access and be sustainable in terms of technical, financial and
environmental feasibility (White & Kenyan 1980).
To be successful, vocational and skills and training have to take into consideration the
characteristics of national and local labour markets and employability which is commonly
defined as a combination of assets and competence. Enhancing the employability of
deprived youth and rural poor, in particular women, is a prerequisite for mitigating the risk of
further poverty and marginalization.
The craft agrofood industry, based on traditional skills is sector largely dominated by women
due to its easy access, its application of domestic or traditional skills, and the minimal capital
outlay needed; the craft food industry plays a key role in the employment and income of
women. For this sector to reach its full potential, more training programmes associating
both literacy and vocational skills need to be created (IIEP 2006). Not only is the activity a
source of income for women, especially those in urban areas, but it also facilitates their entry
into a social network. The nature of activities of the sector leads to strong female presence in
professional organizations which reinforces their ability to defend their own interests. By
acquiring a certain social standing, this opens up further possibilities of their participating in
public and political life.
The important field of TVET and TVSD is an essential element in reducing rural poverty but
has been put aside for many years by policy makers, donors and the private sector. On one
side this resulted in a general neglect which is evident in the lack of technical expertise and
crafts people at all levels. On the other side, there is a multitude of training and capacitybuilding initiatives that provide only short term solutions and cannot circumvent the larger
problem of low levels of education and persistent illiteracy.
2.
Poverty
2.1
Definition of Poverty
Poverty is widely understood as the condition of living on an income below a certain
minimum threshold. The World Bank defines those living on under US$2 a day as living in
poverty, and those living on under US$1.25 as living in extreme poverty internationally.
Poverty also relates, however, to other deprivations such as poor health, lack of education,
vulnerability, exposure to risk and powerlessness. While each contributes independently to
low well-being, they often go hand-in-hand with a lack of income, and reinforce it, making
poverty difficult to escape, persistent across generations and deeply disadvantageous in
terms of full participation in society. Recognition of this fact has led to the development of
poverty definitions and indicators which explicitly recognize dimensions of poverty other
than income poverty.
2.2

Courses of Poverty
Basic causes: these depend on a host factors such as limited resources, lack of skill, location
disadvantage and other factors that are inherent in the social and political set-up.

Transitional causes: these are mainly due to structural adjustment reforms and changes in
domestic economic policies that may result in price changes, increased unemployment and
so on. Natural calamities such as wars, environmental degradation and so on also induce
transitory poverty.

According to Abu-Bakr (2010) the causes of poverty includes among others:

Corruption
Bad governance
Unemployment
Low productivity
Unfocused government policies
Lack of effective skills training
Failure to adjust or re-adjust when situation demands
2.3
Poverty Reduction
Reducing the number of people living below the poverty line is often seen as the primary
aim of poverty reduction. Even amongst the poor, however, there are large differences
between those who are just below the poverty line and the very poorest, and improving
livelihoods among the poor is also an important focus. There are three kinds of poverty
reduction:
Poverty alleviation - Alleviating the symptoms of poverty and/or reducing the severity
of poverty without transforming people from poor to non-poor;
Lifting people out of poverty - Poverty reduction in the true sense; reducing the
numbers of poor people and/or transforming poor people into non-poor people;
Poverty prevention - Enabling people to avoid falling into poverty by reducing their
vulnerability.

Recent studies by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) advocates the use of the
Human Development Index (HDI) to measure poverty (UNDP, 2009); HDI combine three
components in the measurement of poverty:
a) life expectancy at birth
b) Education accomplishment and;
c) Improved standard of living determined by per capita income

The challenge of reducing poverty is different in different areas of the world. In developing
countries, where the majority of the poor live, it is widely accepted that sustained economic
growth is critical for sustained poverty reduction, but that economic growth is an insufficient
condition for poverty reduction. Full and productive employment and decent work are
regarded as one link between economic growth and poverty reduction (King and Palmer,
2008).
In developed countries, income inequality is a major reason that poverty persists despite the
strong and consistent growth of the past decades; worklessness is a significant contributor to
this inequality.
3.
Significance of Technical and Vocational Education in Poverty Reduction
Vocational education plays vital roles in reducing unemployment, through creating employment in
the fields of pre vocational specialization. It will promote equity by bridging the gap between
urban to rural biased in educations and serve the needs of relatively poor people. It is considered
helpful in skilled-culture and attitude towards manual work, in distinction to pure academic culture
and preference for white collar jobs.
3.1
Poverty Alleviation through Technical and Vocational Education
Skills acquisition is an effective means of facilitating economic development in developing
countries. Since the establishment of industries usually results in the transformation of a traditional
society, by inculcating new values and introducing new habits. It may play a significant role in the
process of development. In Kenya numerous programmes has been introduced in the past by both
Government and private sector organizations in the country with the aim at providing skills, job
creation, poverty eradication, food adequacy and youths empowerment. All the effort went in vain
without achieving the set objectives.
In a general term, vocational education is that part of the total experience of the individual whereby
he learns successfully to carry on a profitable occupation. This is a comprehensive definition because
it covers both vocational education and Vocational Training. According Okoro (1993) vocational
education provides the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary for effective employment in specific
occupations. While on the other hand technical education is a comparatively new phase of vocational
education, it is designed to meet the complex technological needs of modern industry.
Poverty alleviation implies the reduction or eradication of poverty level in any society, skill training
in TVET leads to acquisition of competencies to generate wealth. Below are the guiding principles
for the effective implementation strategies of TVET programmes so as to reduce or eradicate poverty
in Kenya.
Economic expansion and employment creation: provision of employability skills is a
means for enhancing economic growth and the creation of employment for all.
Teaching appropriate vocational subjects: the objectives of job creation and poverty
reduction can only be realized through applicable education which empowers the products of
the education system with skills and competencies to become self employed
Access and fairness: The strategy should not discriminate on the basis of social status,
ethnic or religious affiliation, age, or academic background.
Employability and entrepreneurship: acquisition of employable and entrepreneurial skills
is one of the major objectives of a credible vocational training system.

Sustainability: The strategy must ensure that the training providers will continue operating
and delivering their programmes in a cost-effective manner.
Moral and ethical values: inculcation of moral and ethical values like honesty, respect for
others should be part of the training programme.
Proficiency: The training must measure proficiency, rather than theoretical knowledge.
Relevance: The training system must respond to the needs of the trainee, the community and
the local industry.
Responsible citizenship: Training must include elements of good governance and
responsible citizenship such as respect for democracy and basic human rights

3.2
Skills Development and Poverty Reduction
Skills development broadly is not equated with formal technical, vocational and agricultural
education and training alone, but is used more generally to refer also to the productive capacities
acquired through all levels of education and training, occurring in formal, non-formal and on-thejob settings, which enable individuals in all areas of the economy to become fully and
productively engaged in livelihoods and to have the opportunity to adapt these capacities to meet
the changing demands and opportunities of the economy and labour market (King and Palmer,
2006).
Skills development can play an important role in reducing poverty. Skills, from basic skills
such as literacy and numeracy, to vocational skills which equip individuals for practical work,
to high level research and development skills, can all contribute to lifting individuals out of
poverty by improving access to work and productivity and fostering national economic
growth. However, ensuring that skills development opportunities are accessible to the poor
and can be translated into livelihood improvements remains a c hallenge.
Skills development has a key role to play in both economic growth and individual incomes and
access to jobs. Using new OECD data, Cohen and Soto (2007) show that human capital
increases have a positive and significant effect on economic growth across a range of different
economic models. Psacharopoulos and Patrinos (2002) review data from 98 countries, and
show that education has a significant and positive effect on individual earnings.
Conversely, poverty and a lack of education and skills development opportunities are closely
linked across the developed and developing world, on both an individual and social level.
Poverty often leads to limited access to quality education, and poor educational outcomes such
as high levels of illiteracy and innumeracy. These poor outcomes then contribute to
constraining individual opportunities and national economic growth, reinforcing patterns of
poverty. Providing skills development opportunities that are accessible to those living in
poverty should therefore be a key part of any nations poverty reduction strategies.
Although low levels of education and skills unambiguously contribute to the persistence of
poverty, the relationship between skills development and poverty reduction is complex.
Basic skills and more advanced education and training can both make an important
contribution to poverty reduction, but only if they are delivered in the right way.
3.2.1 Basic Education Skills for Life

At an individual level, skills development through education and training can equip an
individual with the capabilities and knowledge which help them improve their life situations
in a range of ways.
Education and training can enable individuals to find a job, as well as equipping them for
more highly paid work.
Education and training can lead to the adoption of more productive farming
practices, targeting poverty in rural areas where around 75% of the poor live
globally.
There is also evidence that education can directly affect other dimensions of poverty
such as health. Higher levels of education reduce infant mortality and improve
womens control over their fertility, for example.
Basic education can yield many of these poverty reducing benefits. International
development attention has consequently focused heavily on expanding access to basic
education, in line with Millennium Development Goal 2 Ensure that, by 2015, children
everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary
schooling. For education at this level to have a poverty-reducing impact, however, it must
be a reasonable quality, and it must take place in a broader enabling environment
which allows those with basic education to put their skills to use, to raise their standard
of living (Palmer, Wedgwood & Hayman, 2007).
3.2.2 Post-Basic Education and Training Skills for Work
Ensuring that all poor individuals can acquire basic skills is therefore important for
poverty reduction. There are also, however, strong arguments for focusing more broadly
on skills development, including post-basic education and training.

Firstly, the quality of delivery in basic education is dependent on the existence of

a strong post-basic education system, in order to deliver teaching, administrative,
policy and planning capacity. Unbalanced and rapid expansion of a sub-sector
within education can, therefore, lead to a crisis of quality.

Secondly, there is evidence that changing circumstances in the developing

world may be reducing the potential for basic education alone to have
significant development impacts: Circumstances have changed, particularly in
Africa, where labour market conditions (with at best slowly growing formal
employment and greatly increased outflows of primary leavers from qualityconstrained school systems) suggest that economic returns at primary level have
fallen relative to higher levels of education. Primary schooling alone may, then,
no longer deliver the full benefits previously associated with it. Skills
development beyond the basic level is therefore also important.

As Palmer et al. (2007) point out, post-basic education and training does not necessarily
need to reach every member of a poor community in order to have a poverty reducing
effect:
If individuals learn skills beyond the level of that of their family/immediate neighbours, they
can confer benefits on their local community indirectly through starting enterprises that create
employment, sending home remittances, introducing farming techniques that are imitated by
neighbouring farmers, providing local services (e.g. teachers), providing positive female role
models that challenge local perceptions, etc. Individual members within a community who
have higher levels of education can contribute to poverty reduction, provided they stay linked

to their home community, either living and working there or sending back money. The
broader environment also needs to enable those who receive post-basic education and
training to put it to use. For example, the conditions need to be favourable for entrepreneurs
to set up businesses.
In order for skills development beyond the primary level to make a difference, it also needs
to be of adequate quality, and provide skills that are valuable in the local economy. In
developing countries, where the majority of the poor earn their income from agriculture or
the informal sector, skills development designed to prepare learners exclusively for formal
employment is often poorly aligned with the local labour market. There is an increasing
awareness that equipping people with skills for work in poor countries involves improving
their options within the informal and agricultural sector.
Skills development can assist informal sector operatives in a number of ways, including the
following:
Training can increase the productivity of informal sector activities and lead to better
quality products and services, raising the incomes of those employed in the sector.
(World Bank cited in Palmer et al. 2007)
Engaging in training can link informal business people and apprentices with suppliers,
customers, and others in their trade, leading to the development of networks which
support business (Palmer et al. 2007)
Training, especially work-based training such as informal apprenticeships, can help
develop general business and managerial skills, including customer relations skills,
crucial to apprentices future survival as independent entrepreneurs (Fluitman, 1994)
In the agriculture sector, the World Bank (2007) make the case that training designed to
improve agriculture and business skills can increase both yields and profits. While the design
of relevant training programmes is clearly essential, delivering training effectively is also a key
challenge. As Atchoarena (2006) points out, When policy-makers are willing to invest in
skills development to reduce poverty, an immediate problem for many low-income countries
is the capacity of the delivery system, both in size and relevance. Apart from the public
training system, often relatively small, other providers are atomized and unable to meet the
needs. Implementing a skills development policy to reduce poverty also implies building a
system able to meet this specific demand.
3.2.3 Skills Utilization and the Broader Development Context
Even when relevant and accessible training is available to the poor, the environment in
which they must use their skills strongly affects the impact that training is able to have
upon individuals incomes. The availability of financial services, including capital for
the poor, is one factor which constrains the application of training. The UK Commission for
Africa (2005) emphasizes the importance of integrating skills development with the
factors which support skills utilization and economic growth generally. As Palmer et al.
(2007) report, the priority conditions for growth are major investments in physical,
transport, and communication infrastructure, in a positive investment climate for
entrepreneurship development, along with political commitment and good
governance. Unless these are achieved, investments in education (and health) are
unlikely to be sustainable.
4.

Entrepreneurship Education

4.1

4.2

According to Omolayo (2006) Entrepreneurship is the act of starting a company, arranging

business deals and taking risks in order to make a profit through the education skills
acquired. Nwangwu (2007) expressed that entrepreneurship is a process of bringing together
the factors of production, which include land, labour and capital so as to provide a product or
service for public consumption.
Objectives of Entrepreneurial Education
To offer functional education for the youth that will enable them to be self-employed and
self-reliant
Provide the youth graduates with adequate training that will enable them to be creative and
innovative in identifying novel business opportunities.
Offer tertiary institution graduates with adequate training in risk management, to make
certain bearing feasible.
To reduce high rule of poverty.
Create employment generation.
Reduction in rural-urban migration.
Youth Empowerment through Entrepreneurial Skills in TVET
When you help somebody to do something which he/she would not have been able to do
without your help, you have empowered him/her in relation to his/.her objective.
Skill training through TVET is a proper tool for empowerment since it leads to the
acquisition of saleable technical talents and productive competencies useful for
employability especially for youths in these days of kidnapping, pocket-picking, terrorism,
armed robbery, idleness and other social vices.

The National Policy on Education and Training (2012) explained the purpose of TVET as:
To enable individuals acquire vocational and technical skills.
To expose the individuals to career awareness by exposing useable options in the world of
work.
To enable youth acquire an intelligent understanding of the increasing complexity of
technology, and
To encourage creativity.
5.
Summary
It is apparent that a deliberate effort to develop various skills and competences needed in diverse
aspects of the economy is necessary. The technological expansion of any nation requires the
relevance and functional skills and competencies in the world of work. It is a clear evidence from a
various sources reveals that the biggest drivers of Kenyas current youth unemployment crises are:
Lack of jobs
Lack of skills and experience
Mismatch between supply and demand for labour
Numerous barriers to youth entrepreneurship.
Introducing entrepreneurial studies as an explicit goal in the curriculum will be a clear signal that it
is important for every student. Moreover, it will make it easier for teachers to spend teaching hours
on the subject

6.
Recommendation
The following recommendations are made on how to achieve entrepreneurial skills education
through Technical Vocational Education and Training.
Entrepreneurial skills and workshop on how to find business ideas should be integrated in
school curriculum to encourage young people to start their own business.
The education system should provide the skills profiles required by the labour market to
enhance employability of young people after graduation.
Government should encourage private sectors participation in the delivery of Technical
Vocational Education and Training.
Due to the socio-cultural diversity inherent in developing countries like Kenya,
entrepreneurial policies that are unique and indigenous to the respective counties should be
willingly followed.
Basic and post-basic education are both required for education to be as effective as
possible in reducing poverty, and a balanced approach to education sectors,
including relevant vocational education and training, is therefore required.
Enabling poor individuals to access education and training often involves addressing a
range of barriers including poor health and social exclusion. Training programmes
need to take the specific challenges of the community into account.
DfIDs Educating out of Poverty highlights the need for more detailed knowledge
about links between specific kinds of educational provision (including informal
vocational training and formal technical training) and specific kinds of livelihood
opportunity, and the impact on these links of changes in the wider economic
environment.

References
Atchoarena, D. and Gasperini, L. (2003). Education for rural development: towards new
policy responses. FAO, UNESCO.
Atchoarena (2006). Building skills for poverty reduction, IEEP Newsletter, 24(3).
Bennell, P. (2007), Promoting Livelihood Opportunities For Rural Youth, Paper presented at
Roundtable 3: Generating remunerative livelihood opportunities for rural youth, IFAD
Governing Council 2007
Bennell, P. (1999), Learning to change: Skills development among the economically
vulnerable and socially excluded in developing countries. Employment and Training
Papers 43. Employment and Training Department, ILO: Geneva.
Colclough, C. (1980), Primary Schooling and Economic Development: A review of the
Evidence, World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 399, Washington: The World Bank
Colclough, C. (2006). Research consortium on educational outcomes and poverty: recoup. In
Norrag News 37:24.
Fluitman, F. (2005), Poverty reduction, decent work, and the skills it takes or: towards
correcting a partial view of training needs in African development.
Fluitman, F. (2002), Unpublished plenary discussion on the draft of the World Banks
Vocational Skills Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Synthesis of a regional review.
Edinburg University, September 2002.
International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) (2006), Building Skills for Poverty
Reduction, Newsletter Vol XXIV- 3.
King, K., McGrath, S. and Rose, P. (2007), Beyond the basics: Educating and training out of
poverty, International Journal of Educational Development 27, 349357
King, K. and Palmer R. (2006), Skills Development and Poverty Reduction: The State of the
Art. Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh.
UNESCO (2008), EFA Global Monitoring Report; Overcoming Inequality; Why Governance
matters.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2007), Participation in Formal Technical and Vocational
Education and Training Programmes Worldwide - An Initial Statistical Study. Montreal,
Canada.
UNESCO-UNEVOC (2006), Participation in formal technical and vocational education and
training programmes worldwide: an initial statistical study. Bonn, Germany. UNESCOUNEVOC International centre for technical and vocational education and training.
World Bank (1980), Education Sector Policy Paper, PUB 26-80. The World Bank:
Washington.
White, S & Kenyan, P (1980), Enterprise-based Youth Employment Policies, Strategies and
Programmes (Geneva, ILO).