By Anne Sunkuiya

KenGen Geothermal Training Centre has reported an increase in enrolment of regional students in various short-term programmes intended to meet skill needs of priority sector of power and energy. This is according to the mid-term evaluation report of the five-year EASTRIP project, funded by the World Bank and the Governments of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania to increase access and improve quality of TVET programs offered by the selected Regional Flagship TVET Institutes and support regional integration.

KenGen Geothermal Training Centre was selected as one of the Regional Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Centres of Excellences (CoEs) to be supported under this project to offer courses in the Energy Sector.

The report undertaken to assess the performance of the project at its mid-term, revealed that KenGen GTC has made good progress in enrolment of regional students, curriculum development for long term  courses,  partnerships  and attachment of Instructors. The Training Centre which is now in its 4th year of implementation of the project, achieved 120% on regional students’ enrolment. Speaking during the Technical Advisory Meeting held in Mombasa early this month, KenGen – GTC Industry Liaison Officer, Ms Beatrice Kandie, said that this has been made possible through partnerships with several institutions that have a common interest in training, research, technology development and transfer as far as Geothermal and other renewable energy sources and development is concerned. These includes Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Kabarak University, University of Twente in Netherlands, GRÓ-GTP Geothermal Training Program (GRÓ-GTP), Association of Power Utilities of Africa (APUA), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) among others.

For instance, under the GRÓ-GTP annual programme, the centre runs various training modules with students invited from various countries within the African Rift Valley System which extends from the Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, the Democratic republic of Congo, Zambia, Malawi Comoros, Nigeria, Sudan, Morocco, and Yemen. The course entails a comprehensive program that brings together world-class experts to teach all elements of geothermal energy from resource discovery to utilization, including drilling and reservoir management

By the end of the project, KenGen GTC is expected to increase the number of students enrolled in various programs aimed at meeting skills needs of priority sector of power and energy.

The Writer is a Senior Information Sceintist at KenGen Geothermal Training Centre