Building an oasis of professional talent

Training system

A group of 30 Chinese maintenance workers accompanied the installation of the machines and gave on-site instruction to Kenyan teachers about their operation and maintenance, said Liang Bin, a project manager of AVIC International's Kenya office.

"The first group of 25 teachers completed their four-month training in December 2011 at China's Inner Mongolia Technical College of Mechanics and Electrics and Shaanxi Hengtong Intelligent Machine Co Ltd. A group of Chinese experts gave them follow-up training at Kenyan universities last year, which focused on machine maintenance and failure recovery," Liang said.

Francis Gitonge, a teacher at Kenya Polytechnic University College, a constituent college of the University of Nairobi, said that the training includes both skills and degree training.

"Local people are entitled to enroll in the one-year training program to become a craftsman or a two-year program to receive a certificate for an annual fee of 30,000 Kenyan shillings ($346). They can also take a four-year degree program costing 70,000 Kenyan shillings annually," he said.

"Skilled workers can be employed as machinery operatives earning around 20,000 Kenyan shillings a month," Gitonge said.

Though the training program has just started, big companies such as the Mumias Sugar Co and West Kenya Sugar Co Ltd "have talked with the ministry and the college to solve their shortage of technicians. In addition, they hope the universities in the training program will produce machine parts and molds needed in production," said C.T. Akumu Owuor, director of the technical and vocational education and training at Kenya Polytechnic University College.

Si said that orders for producing these parts and molds will come as soon as talks about technical issues are concluded.

"Kenya is famous for its secondhand car market with the majority of brands coming from Japan. But spare parts are expensive and they take a long time to reach Kenya. The market potential is great for these training centers to produce these parts as many auto parts dealers have already approached the universities regarding production," Si said.

He added that some Chinese companies in Kenya's construction sector are also interested in subcontracting parts production to the training centers after evaluating cost and quality issues.

"Meanwhile, boosting vocational training programs in Africa will greatly drive up China's exports of high-tech products and services," Si said.

"This is our first vocational training project and we must make it successful to build up our brand to win future deals."

He added that AVIC International is extending its vocational training cooperation to Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and South Sudan.

"Competition is fierce and the market has enough players from Japan and South Korea. But our training centers can be used for teaching as well as parts production, rather than only serving as labs for scientific research," Si said.

"We see great opportunities from Africa's industrialization integrated with its skilled workforce, a model which proved successful in China in the past decades."

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Tapping the potential of Africa's oil

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