Whole youth development and employment: Exploring the nexus using qualitative data from a Kenyan study of Technical and Vocational Education and Training institutions

Abstract

Investment in sub-Sahara Africa's (SSA’s) youth through effective capacity development, involving adoption of contemporary skills development approaches, is integral in alleviating the region’s high youth unemployment rates as it will equip the youth with skills needed for employment. Skills that are needed are those that holistically develop the youth skills-set, including technical/hard and soft-skills, dubbed whole youth development (WYD) skills. This paper thus explores Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students’ understanding of soft-skills and its development. The paper utilizes data collected from a TVET study in Kenya that was carried in 9 of the 47 counties, targeting learners aged 15–24 years. The selected counties were those that had national polytechnics for national representation, except one (Turkana county), which was selected to represent youth from marginalized counties. A descriptive cross-sectional study design was adopted for this study. The findings indicate that there is a good understanding of soft-skills among the targeted respondents, with extra-curricular activities playing a key role in promoting TVET students’ soft-skills. However, inadequate human resource and low level of awareness on soft-skills among instructors contribute to inadequate soft-skills learning. This calls for a concerted effort among key education stakeholders on the development of instructors’ and institutions’ capacities for a plausible soft-skills outcome.