More Rwandan Girls increasingly seeking technical skills will boost the country’s workforce
More Rwandan women are making their way into the country’s workforce as seen by the increasing number of girls enrolling for technical education.
Workforce Development Authority (WDA) in collaboration with Integrated Polytechnic Regional Centers (IPRCs) today announced provisional undergraduate admission results for the 2017-2018 academic year.
Irenee Nsengiyumva, the deputy director general–training in WDA told KT Press that this year they had a big number of applications however a few were competent.
This year 8,000 submitted applications but only 3,478 students have been admitted. Last year there were about 8856 applicants and only 3265 were admitted.
Nsengiyumva said that there is a slight increase in number of girls enrolling for technical education compared to last year.
“The number of girls admitted this year is 847 representing 24% compared to 23% from 2016 admissions,” he said.
However, student applicants with complaints will have six days to appeal from August 10 to August 16, 2017 at the nearby IPRC colleges or visit WDA offices in Kigali.
WDA says that this process should be done before the final admission list is released on August 21st.
“We don’t expect a lot of changes because the selection was without bias. No student will be removed from the current list but a few more may be added instead,” Nsengiyumva said.
WDA has established eight polytechnic colleges inlcuding; Gishali Integrated Polytechnic, Kitabi College of conservation and environment management and Musanze Polytechnic- located in the province.
Last year, Rwanda rolledout 660 highly skilled technicians into the job market including; 525 males and 135 female. Government believes the demand can be met through technical skills development.
Rwanda has set a target of creating 2.2 million jobs in the off-farm sector by 2020 and so far over 80,000 jobs have been created since the National Employment Program (NEP) unveiled two years ago.
At least 30.000 direct jobs were created in the first fiscal year 2014, and another 50.000 jobs have created by June fiscal year 2016 under NEP as part the contribution to the national target- which is also so far above 230.000 jobs annually.
The government has also partnered with Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) supporting both in equipment and human resource areas to achieve these targets.
