Africa could benefit from the demographic dividend by identifying strategies for investing in the massive youthful workforce. The current study employs the social cognitive career theory perspective to assess Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions' curriculum coverage of various skills in Kenya. We further examine the…

Economic growth is dependent on well-skilled human capital. Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programmes are paramount in provision of the requisite capabilities which encompass both academic and non-academic skills also known as whole youth development (WYD) skills. Youths leaving training institutions in Kenya experience…

This paper examines three interrelated factors outside of formal provision of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in sub-Saharan Africa that have undermined TVET systems. The first is the process, pace, and levels of industrialisation, which has had a direct effect on TVET provision: low numbers of well-paying jobs requiring…

This paper reports a study about the perceptions of the academic community, employers and civil servants regarding graduates' employability skills in East Africa. Specifically, it focuses on the mismatch between skills acquired in Higher Education (HE) and those in demand by employers, and explores factors influencing the situation. A mixed method…

This study measures the effect of ethnic favoritism on primary education using data from the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey. In line with previous studies, this study confirms that having a coethnic president is expected to improve the likelihood of completing primary education. This study demonstrates that ethnic favoritism operates at the…

The contribution of university education to sustainable development of society has become one of the most important activities of higher education institutions. After 55 years of independence, it is time to take a critical look at the role of university education in nation building in Kenya. Since independence, access and difficulties of…

Using novel adult skills surveys, this article analyses cross-country patterns in skill achievement and labour market returns, comparing the outcomes for a subset of developing countries with the results previously found for high-income economies. Apart from displaying lower average cognitive skills, developing countries also exhibit wider…

Recent evidence indicates substantial heterogeneity in the returns to skills across countries, but only a few studies have explained the varying patterns in the return to skills. Using the 2013 STEP data for Ghana and Kenya, we estimate the causal effect of cognitive and noncognitive skills on a large set of labour market outcomes by controlling…

Artificial intelligence has produced new teaching and learning solutions that are now undergoing testing in different contexts. In addition to its impact on the education sector, AI is substantially altering labour markets, industrial services, agriculture processes, value chains and the organization of workplaces in particular. Technical and…

The secondary school teacher labour market faces many challenges including, escalating teacher wage bill, teacher shortages that occur alongside teacher surpluses, inadequate teacher distribution and inefficient teacher utilization. There is the need therefore to understand the effects of the factors determining demand for secondary school…

The flight of human capital is a phenomenon that has been of concern to academics and development practitioners for decades but unfortunately, there is no systematic record of the number of skilled professionals that many African countries have continued to lose to the developed world. Termed the "brain drain", it represents the loss of…

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse comparatively the existing partnerships between the University of Padua and the enterprises in Veneto region, Italy, on one hand and Kenyatta University and industries in Kenya on the other. Design/methodology/approach: This was a case study of the University of Padua in Veneto Region, Italy, and Kenyatta…

This study examined the effect of two family factors (financial, social capital) and school factors on students' achievement. One hundred eighty two, seventh-grade female students from nine schools in Muranga district, Kenya, were studied. The statistical procedures included logit regression, cross-tabulations, frequency counting and chi-square…

This paper presents a review of the challenges that disabled people experience in participating in the Kenyan labour market. It draws on existing literature and on a narrative of the experiences of one disabled academic in a Kenyan university to highlight some of the forms of discrimination that disabled people have to cope with in their…