Why TVETs are central to Kenya’s growth

But embedded within this diagnosis is a more transformative proposition: public assets, if better deployed, can become engines of skills development.

Take the directive that public entities channel vehicle repairs through TVET owned garages. This may appear operational. It is, in fact, structural. It repositions Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions not as peripheral training centres, but as productive links within the national economy.

Read: How industry and TVETs are teaming up to bridge skills gap

In the US, transformative technologies did not emerge by accident. They were cultivated through deliberate public investment, procurement and institutional alignment. The internet traces back to the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency’s early research.

GPS was developed through sustained Department of Defense investment before opening to civilian use. In both cases, the government did more than fund innovation: it created demand, de-risked experimentation and embedded learning within production systems.

By directing public sector demand, such as vehicle maintenance, towards TVET institutions, the government is beginning to do what the US did for technology: signal value, create markets, and anchor skills in real economic activity.

For too long, TVET has been framed as an alternative pathway. This narrative has diminished its attractiveness while obscuring its true role. Skills underpinning modern economies, engineering, fabrication, repair, digital systems, and green technologies are inherently technical. They are learned by doing.

Repositioning TVET is therefore not corrective, but a foundation for development.

The circular’s emphasis on productive use of public assetws deepens this shift. Workshops, farms, and fabrication laboratories can no longer remain dormant outside training hours. They must evolve into active production spaces where learning and value creation are intertwined.

When a TVET garage services government vehicles, it is not merely fixing engines: it is training mechanics on real systems, generating income, and building institutional credibility. When agricultural training institutions move beyond demonstration plots to actual production, they are not just teaching, they are participating in agrifood systems.

Yet this shift demands a new level of institutional ambition. Owning assets is no longer enough. Institutions must define their comparative advantage, align training with real demand, and organise themselves for value creation.

This is particularly urgent in Kenya’s predominantly informal economy. TVET institutions can serve as a bridge. By embedding production within training, they can formalise skills, standardise practices, and create pathways into more secure livelihoods without stripping away the flexibility that sustains informal enterprise.

Importantly, redirecting public services to TVET institutions is not about displacing private enterprise. It is about expanding the economy’s skills base.

Read: Varsities, TVETs face Sh59bn funding hole

A system that produces work ready graduates trained through real production reduces training costs for firms, improves productivity, and strengthens innovation.

In this sense, TVET is not a competitor to the private sector; it is its most important upstream partner.

The ongoing rollout of dual training models and modular curricula already points in this direction. But policy signals alone are not enough.

TVET institutions must now position strategically, identifying niches, forming regional clusters, and building integrated value chains: one institution specialising in fabrication, another in agro-processing, another in textiles, together creating coherent local economies.

At the heart of this transformation is a simple idea: training and production should not be separate.

This is what it means to treat TVET as infrastructure, not as buildings, but as systems of capability.