20 Dec 2023

The Ministry of Education and Skills Development is transforming technical and vocational education and training primarily through curriculum review.

Responding to a parliamentary question the assistant minister Mr Aubrey Lesaso said the transformation was expected to address the current quality and relevance of training at brigades.

“The ministry will enrol learners into 12 newly accredited learning programmes aligned to the National Qualification Framework in March as part of the rollout of new programmes next year,” he said adding that currently the ministry was still offering some 22 legacy programmes.

He said the current full operational capacity of the 32 brigades and four certificate offering technical colleges nationwide was 8 750, while the occupancy stood at 6 953 trainees, which translated to 79.4 per cent utility.

The assistant minister explained that factors accounting for the low occupancy rate included the availability of both human and physical resources including classrooms, computer labs, workshops, equipment and machinery.

“Another factor negatively impacting the occupancy is the slow accreditation of learning programmes at particular institutions,” he said.

Specially Elected Member of Parliament, Dr Unity Dow had asked about the current capacity and occupancy of brigades, as well as factors that accounted for that rate.

She also wanted to know if the minister was satisfied with the quality and relevance of the training at brigades and if not, any plans to address the problems. ENDS