Thesis:

Effect of devolution of village polytechnics programs on employment in rural areas, Murang’a county, Kenya

Village polytechnic programs provide young people in rural regions with chances for vocational training with the goal of improving their employability through skills including house management, masonry, tailoring, carpentry, and crop and animal husbandry. In order to better understand how vocational training may be tailored to the job demands of rural communities, this study aims to pinpoint the programs' advantages and disadvantages. In particular, the study assesses how employment in rural parts of Kenya's Murang'a County is influenced by devolved village polytechnic programs. The study's goals are to: evaluate the quality and accessibility of village polytechnic education in Murang'a County after devolution; examine the connection amid rural employment outcomes and vocational training; pinpoint the opportunities and problems related to devolved village polytechnic programs; and offer policy recommendations for enhancing these programs' efficacy in tackling rural unemployment. The Human Capital Theory and the Endogenous Growth Theory serve as the study's foundations. Data was gathered via surveys using a vivid and descriptive study design and a mixed-methods methodology. 226 people from six village polytechnics in Murang’a County—Kandara, Kigumo, Mathioya, Muranga south and Maragua sub counties made up the target population. To pretest the questionnaire, a pilot study with 23 management staff members produced an acceptable reliability coefficient of 0.836. SPSS was used for data analysis to investigate the link between dependent and independent variables. The results showed that while there is a considerable amount of involvement in vocational training programs, respondents' opinions about the caliber of instruction and the curriculum's applicability to the labor market were not entirely consistent. There appears to be a misalignment between training content and labor market demands, as realized by the large respondents’ percentage who had not found job directly relevant to their training. Nonetheless, the respondents’ majority said that devolution had improved the county's ability to access vocational training programs. To improve the accessibility and caliber of village polytechnic programs, the report suggests curriculum revision to match training to the local labor market demands and more funding for vocational education facilities.