Scoping study to strengthen the Technical Vocational Education and Training in the Dairy Sector in East Africa
This study (PDF) by ICRA, AERES and commissioned by the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality assessed the need, relevance, priorities, limitations and possible modalities of an East African Dairy Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) project. Dairy is economically important in the East African region. The Netherlands public and private stakeholders have been major players in dairy development in this region. They both agree that skills development is crucial, since there is a lack of practical skills of TVET and university graduates. The lack of instructors and suitable facilities and infrastructures at universities remain limitations. Labour market skill requirements in the dairy sector are relatively well defined. A great variety of organizations currently offer dairy training and education, from university programmes to short courses. Formal TVET sector has developed in countries having TVET policies. However, competency-based training (CBET) and accreditation mechanisms are still being developed. National educational policies notwithstanding, it is too simplistic to assume that most practical dairy training will be by formal TVET institutes. Given this, Netherlands support to a few organizations is unlikely to have a widespread and sustainable impact on the regional diary sector. A better potential to have impact at scale would be to support a range of interested training organizations. The Netherlands has an advantage and the capacity to develop practical blended-learning materials for the dairy sector. A generalised framework could greatly assist the variety of educational and training institutes to implement practical and/or CBET programmes already in operation or planned. There are a number of areas where Netherlands partners can usefully support processes related to the dairy sector, including: developing competencies of trainers and training, facilitate accreditation of dairy training programmes, and developing competencies of national TVET authorities. Advantages of a regional dairy skill development project are, for example, the greater potential for scaling and development impact, and sharing of significant costs and experiences. Disadvantages include greater project preparation and transaction costs. Three options for potential project options are: 1) fully integrated and comprehensive regional project; 2) independent national projects; 3) “mixed” model comprising a regional project to support national projects.