In the newest efforts to boost interest in technical and vocational training institutes, Treasury CS Ukur Yatani announced tax rebates for firms giving at least one-year internships to graduates from the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programme.
The parent administrator of the institutes, TVET Authority of Kenya, is mandated by the law to regulate and coordinate it.
The authority made confirmation of the incentive in a public statement released Thursday, June 24.
In the last few years, technical training institutes have gained plausible traction in registering new students and ultimately dispatching graduates. Courses offered are mainly interactive and fall under diploma and certificate offerings.
A probable cause of this gradual paradigm shift has to do with the newly sanctioned Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC). The CBC is based on the premise of nurturing the needs and potential of learners within a flexible framework that morphs with shifting requirements of students.
To that effect, TVET Authority of Kenya has recently published that due to tangible government reforms, over 15,000 candidates that scored C+ and above in the 2020 KCSE did not opt to pursue undergraduate degrees.
A sizable chunk of this demographic chose diploma and certificate programmes instead.
In addition to that, they reported that 4,840 students went with TVET colleges to pursue courses in an employment segment where their counterparts in universities struggle to get positions in the job market.
In the preceding year of 2019, 2,632 students registered for diploma and certificate courses in these institutions across the country. Following these metrics, it is only irrefutable that the number of students joining TVET colleges will increase.
The authority remarks that such growth is majorly attributable to the government’s optimized focus in ensuring TVETs thrive in operations as well as in the creation of employment.
“It is my hope that employers will take advantage of this incentive and give our young graduates from the TVET institutions opportunities to gain practical experience to expand their employability,” declared CS Yatani in his 2021 budget speech.
Employers and job owners that engage a minimum of ten graduates from both universities and TVET colleges will be authorized to deduct from their taxable income an extra 50 percent out of their cost of apprenticeship.
This incentive has come at a time when the exchequer is working around the clock to satisfy the country’s current deficit. This has seen KRA holding an auction for luxury vehicles in Mombasa County.
The auction exercise is intended to raise at least Ksh200 million in revenue. Moreover, there has been a proposal to increase taxation on a multitude of products and services that have been vehemently rejected by parliamentarians.
