By Godwin Bonge Muhwezi
The Inter University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), and Guangzhou Technician College (GZTC) have concluded a series of webinars to build capacity of trainers and faculty from Regional Flagship TVET Institutes supported by the East African Skills for Transformation and Regional Integration Project (EASTRIP). IUCEA is the Regional Facilitation Unit of the EASTRIP Project.
The last webinar held on 4th March 2022 focused on Improving Management in Vocational College. It was part of the 9 webinar series held over 10 months to improve the leadership, teaching and management ability of lecturers, middle level and top managers of Regional TVET institutes in East Africa. The webinars were conducted as part of a joint partnership between IUCEA, GZTC and the World Bank. During the webinars 160 lecturers, tutors and managers of TVET institutes in the region were trained.
Present at the the closing ceremony were: Mr. Li Minggen, President of GZTC, Ms. Wang Yanfeng, General Manager of Vcom, Dr. Xiaoyan Liang, Team Leader, World Bank and Prof. Gaspard Banyankimbona, Eaxecutive Secretary, IUCEA.
Speaking at the closing ceremony the IUCEA Executive Scretary, Prof. Gaspard Banyankimbona said: “The Webinars, I believe, have gone a long way in improving building the skills of more than 160 people from different countries of East Africa who have attended the webinars”. Prof. Banyankimbona said, “we believe that this is the beginning of a long-term relationship that will serve to build the capacity of quality TVET systems”.
The World Bank Team Leader, Dr. Xiaoyan Liang urged the regional flagship TVET Institutes to form bilateral partnerships with GZTC to assist them in improving the quality of TVET Programmes.
GZTC is the largest technical college in China’s Guangdong Province which has of the largest vocational education in the country. The webinars were developed to provide learning experience for TVET institutes in East Africa on China’s vocational education, and the integration of industry and education in China.
The capacity building webinars are part of EASTRIP effort to increase access and improve quality of TVET programs offered by selected TVET institutes in the region. The project is designed to address skills shortage and mismatch, by providing technical, financial and industry partnerships to improve the relevance and quality of training programs in selected TVET Institutes.
EASTRIP also supports the development of highly specialized TVET programs at diploma and degree levels for training of technicians and TVET faculty, as well as industry recognised short-term training, targeting regional priority sectors in transport, energy, manufacturing, and ICT.
The Writer is a Project Communication Offficer for EASTRIP at IUCEA
