Women's Month: Championing private sector push to transform TVET training in Kenya

As Country Director for Swisscontact, she moves between rooms and realities with quiet precision, taking on a challenge at the heart of Kenya’s development story: how to support a growing youth population in accessing decent, productive and gainful employment. The problem, she says, is always loud and clear.

“As one of the most youthful countries in the world, over 75% of our population​ is under the age of 35​, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Every year, hundreds of thousands of young people enter the labour market full of ambition, talent, and hope. Yet far too many encounter closed doors instead of opportunity.”

She sits with graduates and asks where the system has failed them. She meets employers and asks what is missing in the workforce. Then she returns to training institutions and asks a final question: where is the gap?

Finally, she works and walks with the government to align policy, standards and curriculum with industry needs. It is this constant movement between learners, industry, Government, training institutions and curriculum accrediting institutions that has shaped her work in advancing private sector-led dual training in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

The model brings employers into the design of training, ensuring that what is taught reflects what the job market demands.

She noted that “Since 2022, PropelA, our youth skills development programme bringing together NITA, private sector companies and Swisscontact, has been piloting a dual training model at Don Bosco Boys Town TVET, combining 75% workplace learning and 25% classroom training, with employers directly shaping skills and supporting apprentices, delivering employability rates of approximately 80% among graduates and serving as a proof of concept for a job market-driven curriculum.”

But why such sustained focus?

“Our education and training systems have expanded access significantly, but expansion has not always translated into relevance,” she says. “Employers consistently report difficulty finding job-ready candidates, while graduates struggle to find work.”

She pauses, then adds, “This is not because Kenya’s young people lack potential; it is because the skills demanded by a rapidly evolving economy are not always aligned with what is being taught. Technical skills, digital capabilities, problem-solving, adaptability and workplace readiness must become central, not peripheral.”

Days before Women’s Day, Kenya launched its first private sector-led TVET curriculum, the foundation of Competency-Based Education (CBE), a localised Swiss dual training model placing 75% of learning in the workplace and 25% in the classroom.

Led by Principal Secretaries Shadrack Mwadime (State Department for Labour and Skills Development) and Dr Esther Muoria (TVET), and co-created with over 60 companies and the National Industrial Training Authority (NITA), the model embeds employers at the core of training to produce job-ready graduates and address youth unemployment.

“A curriculum that you learn as you earn” qualifying it by saying that the private led  dual training system ensures that private sector companies play an active role in the training process by offering workplace learning opportunities, mentors  and providing apprentices with stipends during their industry placements.

For Mosin, the work is deeply personal. She describes her greatest reward not in policy shifts or programme milestones, but in a single moment: seeing a young person complete training and walk into their first job.

“When you see these young people, the first day they come and they are applying to be onboarded into the program. Then you see the people they have become after the two years at graduation. It is really something to be proud of. Also to know that they are not just graduating. They are really in a job, or if they are not in a job, it won't take a long time before they land a job or do entrepreneurship.” 

Sharon Mosin engages with Principal Secretary, State Department for Labour and Skills Development, Shadrack Mwadime, on advancing private sector-led dual training in TVET.

At a time when Kenya is grappling with youth unemployment, her message is clear: meaningful change will not come from government or the private sector acting alone, but from both working together, alongside training institutions, to rewire the system itself.

Emphasising that “Kenya’s economy is dynamic, but much of employment growth is concentrated in the informal sector, where incomes are often low and unstable. Sectors with strong potential like agro-processing, construction, manufacturing, green economy, digital services, and e-mobility, require coordinated investment, policy support, and market linkages. Without sustained private sector growth, even the most skilled youth will struggle to find meaningful employment.” 

In a month that reflects on the contributions of women shaping the present and the future, Sharon Mosin’s work offers a compelling example, steady, systems-focused, and grounded in the belief that opportunity should not be an exception, but a pathway.