There is no approved structured ICT professional training program
in Kenya. Public and private organizations simply offer organizationspecific training and professional development programs for freshly
recruited graduates of ICT degrees. The training and professional
development is often through mentoring by senior ICT professionals
and a series of training programs tailored to specific industries. This
means that the professional development outcomes after approximately three years of experience are not uniform and depend on the
specific company.
‘anecdotal evidence suggests
that ICT degree
graduates remain unemployed for extended periods
or get employed
as low-end ICT
technicians.’
The lack of structured ICT professional development is especially
acute in Government and many not-for-profit public sector institutions (e.g., universities, schools and hospitals). This is partly because
of the inability of these institutions to attract and retain high-end ICT
professionals that could then mentor and train junior professionals.
This also means that such Government departments or institutions
do not have a career growth plan that can be matched by the private
sector in terms of training and remuneration.
There are a number of professional certification programs available
for graduates. These are normally vendor or product specific. For example, CISCO certifications are popular with network professionals.
Leading ERP companies also provide their own certifications (e.g.,
SAP, Oracle, Microsoft certifications). Some companies also arrange
for boot-camp training of ICT professionals. However, most of the
certification programs are too expensive for Kenyan ICT professionals, particularly in the public sector and for Government ICT staff.
Although professional ICT associations like IEEE Kenya chapter, the
Computer Society of Kenya or the newly formed ICT association aim
to promote professional development, most of the ICT graduates do
not join any of the associations possibly because they perceive there
is nothing to gain from joining these associations.
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Apart from the limited and varied professional development opportunities, anecdotal evidence suggests that ICT degree graduates remain unemployed for extended periods or get employed as low-end
ICT technicians. Some ICT graduates attempt to start their own businesses but because of limited business training and/or ICT industry
training, most of the enterprises remain very small and are not successful.
4.1.2 Driving Forces
In Kenya, many factors are driving the demand for high-end ICT professionals including the following:
a)
Increased demand from the national and County Governments
that aim to provide e-Government services and to automate their internal processes.
b)
Increased demand from public institutions (e.g., universities,
schools, hospitals etc) that are in different stages of automating business processes to improve service delivery and to increase efficiency
of operations often by deploying information systems and networks.
c)
The need to create employment opportunities in the ICT sector by creating new ICT companies to develop new applications and
provide support services to businesses and the Government. The employment opportunities include business process outsourcing and IT
enabled services to local and international organizations.
d)
Increased demand from large local firms and SMEs that are
automating their operations. This include the mobile operators, data
companies, broadcasting companies, financial institutions, manufacturing enterprises, agricultural enterprises, tourism among others.
e)
Increased demand for ICT professionals from the large multinational corporations and ICT companies that are setting up their Africa headquarters in Nairobi. This includes Airtel Africa, IBM, Oracle,
and Google among others.
f)
High labour cost of high-end ICT professionals.
‘there are many
factors driving the need for
high-end ICT
proffessionals’
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