By Anne Sunkuiya
KenGen Geothermal Training Centre remains committed to developing courses that are demand-driven and industry-oriented skills in the energy sector, with an expected outcome of highly specialized TVET programs under the EASTRIP World bank project.
Early this month, the Geothermal Training Centre in collaboration with Curriculum Development, Assessment and Certification Council (CDACC) held a three-day induction workshop at the Kenya School of Government for the Sector Skills Advisory Committee (SSAC) members to sensitize them on their terms of reference, CBET curriculum development process and be conversant with the various programmes that GTC is developing.
To address the skills gap within the energy sector, the Sector Skills Advisory Committee (SSAC) is required to review the documents to ensure conformity of the curriculum to the sector needs as per Competency Based Education and Training (CBET) curriculum development procedures.
The SSAC team of six (6) members was appointed through the Energy stakeholders’ meeting held on 4th June, 2019, and an additional team of seventeen (17) was later co-opted and appointed by the Curriculum Development, Assessment and Certification Council (CDACC) to make the team adequate for all the courses to be developed for GTC.
While giving his opening remarks during the event, the Centre Director, Mr. Peketsa Mangi, stated that the Centre was selected as one of the Regional Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Centres of Excellence (CoEs) to be supported under the East Africa Skills for Transformation and Regional Integration Project (EASTRIP) project. ‘‘The Centre is supposed to carry out Competency Based Education and Training (CBET) curriculum development and have the courses accredited to increase and expand intake of trainees to address skills gap within the energy sector’’, he said.
He also thanked the members for sacrificing their time to attend and participate in this important exercise.
The training Centre (GTC) is currently developing a curricula for various Diploma, Certificate and Professional courses under the guidance of TVET-CDACC. So far, the curriculum teams have finalized drafting seven diploma courses in the following areas; Diploma in Power Plants Operations and Maintence, Diploma in Geological Technology, Diploma in Geochemistry Technology, Diploma in Applied Geophysical Technology, Diploma in Steam Field Maintenance Technology, Diploma in Reservoir Technology and Certificate in Energy Projects Management.
Other courses under development include; Diploma in Geo-Scientific Technology, Diploma in Reservoir Monitoring Technology, Certificate in Energy Project Management, Diploma in GIS & Remote Sensing, Diploma in Battery Storage Technology, Diploma in Direct Use Applications and Diploma in Natural Resource Management.
The Sector Skills Advisory Committee (SSAC) will review the curriculum documents and make recommendations to ensure the documents meet industry standards and subsequently submit the final documents to CDACC for validation and approval.
The training Centre staff are optimistic that the curriculum process will be completed within the specified timelines despite the challenges caused by the covid pandemic.
The Writer is a Senior Information Scientist at KenGen GTC
