The Education Sector in Kenya has grown rapidly in the last decade; this has been made possible by advancement in Technology. Institutions of higher learning have been tasked with ensuring there is development of a highly trained and skilled workforce which can compete in the global market. Even with the high number of institutions of higher learning, hundreds of thousands of Candidates who sat for Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) last year have been locked out of universities and other tertiary institutions for not attaining the cutoff grade.
Education CS Amina Mohammed, through a Gazette notice changed the fate of the candidates where candidates who scored a mean grade of E in KCSE can join public universities for a Certificate course. The Certificate will allow the student to progress to the next level including a degree and up to a doctorate. The government is targeting students below the cutoff grade having put measures in place of expanding all existing institutions, construction of new ones in each of the 290 constituencies and through Public-Private Partnership.
Colleges such as the Institute of Software Technologies (IST) are also offering training in professional courses that address specific needs in the job market. It offers a wide range of IT courses which follow international standards. Among the courses are two unique Diploma programs that are not offered anywhere else but at IST, Diploma in Database Administration & Software Development and Diploma in Information Security and Ethical Hacking. This training opens doors to careers such as System Administrator, System Engineer, Technical Administrator and IT consultants while the latter, can secure one a job as a Cyber-Security Analyst. After successful completion of the course, the institution organizes internship and possible job placements for its graduates, registering an 88% employability rate for IST graduates.
Institute of Software Technologies