Youth Skills Development, Informal Employment and the Enabling Environment in Kenya : Trends and Tensions <Special Issue : Youth, Education, and Work>

Youth skills development, poverty and unemployment are prominent global concerns. Pressure to expand post-basic education in countries with low to moderate enrollment and concerns of high youth unemployment have encouraged the development of a "skills for jobs" education reform discourse. The discourse argues that post-basic education focus on skills development with the hypothesis that such a focus will help reduce youth unemployment. Following post-election violence in 2007, promoting youth employment has become an increasingly important policy issue in Kenya. In 2011 nearly 40% of Kenyan youth were neither in school or working, and the informal sector accounts for nearly 80% of jobs. Despite the complex and unclear relationship between education and employment, post-basic education in youth polytechnics and skills development programs have been identified as potential solutions to employability challenges facing Kenya's youth. This paper identifies some of the possibilities and limitations of these reforms and of the broader "skills for jobs" discourse. The paper presents critiques and perceptions influencing recent post-basic education reforms, outlines factors in the economy and the non-economic environment which mediate the relationship between education and employment in Kenya, identifies tensions involved in efforts designed to prepare youth for informal sector employment and discusses two recent reforms designed to provide "skills for jobs."