Occupational Transfer: A Case Study of Craft-Training Policies in Kenya, 1945-1980

Abstract

This article considers the evolution of craft-training policies and practices Kenya since the late 1940s, with particular reference to the engineering trades. There are two important sets of reasons for undertaking such an analysis. First, formally trained, craft-level manpower has been consistently identified as being of vital importance satisfying the skill requirements of the development process. Yet, as Kenneth King has pointed out, in Kenya, as many other African states, the attempt to create artisans a formal institutional context often seems to have turned out very differently from what was planned.' The conception of the craftsman that has underpinned craft-training policy Kenya has been directly based on that of the British craftsmen and the specific forms of training that have been associated with this occupational stratum. An evaluation of the crafttraining program Kenya provides an interesting case study therefore of the process of occupational and training transfer that has occurred from the metropolitan countries to those the periphery. Second, at a more general level, such a study is useful as a further exploration of the much-debated relationships between education and training and the labor market itself, that is, the world of work.