TRAINING AND PRODUCTION IN KENYA'S HARAMBEE INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY

By Mauri Yambo

[NOTE: This paper was presented at a Seminar on Education with Production in Kenya, which was held at Silver Springs Hotel, Nairobi, on November 24-25, 1988. The paper’s full title, then, was “TRAINING AND PRODUCTION IN HARAMBEE INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY: Discussant’s Comments on Chapter 5 of the Sifuna and Shiundu Report.” It is reproduced verbatim below for the record only. While the HIT wave has long since passed, the conceptual and policy issues touched on here remain “live” to-day, some twenty years on -- as I see it]

I. INTRODUCTION

My comments are very brief and, deliberately, provocative. Brief because chapter 5 of the “state-of-the-art” review under discussion captures the core elements of the controversy surrounding the principle of training with production as it has evolved in Kenya. Provocative because – and I would like to say this as emphatically as I can – I see no reason to remain ambivalent about the employment implications for ex-trainees of the production units which have been established within Harambee Institutes of Technology (HIT).

I have chosen to concentrate my attention on this ambivalence (see examples of it on pages 106-107 of the review) as resolving/dissolving it is central to rationalizing practical, hands-on training within the institutes while at the same time maximizing self-employment opportunities in the catchment areas of the respective institutes. As I see it, the weight of the evidence already adduced empirically and logically in the available literature points clearly to the untenability of the view that production units are beneficial to the ex-trainees or the local communities. In other words, their opportunity costs far outweigh their benefits to the said target groups. Let me demonstrate this point by way of nine propositions.

II. NINE PROPOSITIONS IN SUPPORT OF AN ARGUMENT

PROPOSITION 1: The main beneficiaries of the production units are not the ones presumed – trainees, leavers and the local community – but rather the institutions themselves, their managements and, as Sifuna and Shiundu reveal (see page 105 of the review), the “outsiders” who hold shares in some of the production units. Contrary to the general impression one is given, the existence of these production units has not made any HIT financially self-sufficient to-date. There is still the old clamouring for community and donor funding.

PROPOSITION 2: The primary purpose of a training institution is to help trainees to acquire or enhance particular skills, not to make money or act as employer of the first resort to people it was supposed to deliver to the larger labour market.

PROPOSITION 3: By deliberately engaging in income earning activities in the local area, a HIT in effect competes with its own leavers, and enjoys undue advantage over them in that competition.

PROPOSITION 4: Production units set up mainly as revenue earners – that is to say, units “whose main goal is production” (page 89) – are by definition the negation of the principle of “training with production” or “production through training.”

PROPOSITION 5: No contract so far entered into by any HIT could not have successfully been completed by individual HIT leavers or groups/companies of leavers – if given the same opportunity. It is self-serving for HIT administrators to justify their monopoly of the larger contracts on the grounds that these are beyond the capabilities of individual leavers. Indeed, by monopolizing the larger contracts, HIT only retard the growth of a technically-oriented, indigenous, rural entrepreneurship.

PROPOSITION 6: If one takes into account the number of self-employment opportunities “denied” by the involvement of HIT in local contracts, one finds no proof that HIT have contributed to “increasing employment opportunities for rural people,” as claimed on page 107.

PROPOSITION 7: Extensive HIT involvement in contract work in time exacerbates migration to urban areas by – and even unemployment among – HIT leavers from respective local areas. One point is certain, no HIT has the capability to employ all the trainees it turns out, given current enrollment rates.

PROPOSITION 8: A less problematic way to generate revenue to meet development and recurrent expenses in HIT is to rationalize the fee structure, so that it more closely approximates the actual cost of providing training. This can be supplemented with periodic Harambees in which artisans and others gainfully engaged in the respective local areas can be expected to participate fully. The institutes can also benefit by opening up to more than just school leavers.

PROPOSITION 9: In order to give trainees the necessary practical experience, it is sufficient to set up what Sifuna and Shiundu (page 89) refer to as “production through training” programmes. The primary objective in such programmes must be to train, not sell products.

III. CONCLUSION
I conclude by re-stating the point I made at the beginning. There is no reason to remain ambivalent about the negative employment consequences of production units. Failure to address the issue forcefully at this time will only help entrench the mistaken view that production units are a savior to the HIT network, and a creditable source of employment for the leavers.