116 students graduate from C. Equatoria’s vocational institute

April 17, 2014 (LAINYA) – A total of 116 students completed four-month courses in various areas at Lainya vocational institute in South Sudan’s Central Equatoria state.

The students who completed training in auto-mechanics, electrical installation, tailoring and business management, were the first batch to graduate since the institute was inaugurated last year.

Seven of the 116 students were who completed training were female. The students were trained for free, courtesy of financial support provided by Plan South Sudan.

Sebit Kenyi, a project manager at the organisation, said the scheme targets 12,000 students for a three-year period.

“With vocational training, there is no hustling for jobs,” said Kenyi.

“This training equips students with skills, in fact six of the graduates are already employed and eight more have been called to places where they did attachments to be employed,” he added.

Sachin Bharti, a technical advisor at Plan South Sudan, said the training was basically on employable skills.

“We did a research and found out there was overwhelming need for this kind of training,” stressed Bharti.

“The program was designed in a manner that does not require candidates to posses high literacy knowledge,” he added.

The three-year project, Plan South Sudan officials said, was funded the European Union and mainly targets the youth.

Central Equatoria state’s education minister said his department initially preferred a new curriculum of education in which vocational training was emphasized.

“We have adopted a new curriculum and dropped that of Sudan,” said Hastin Yokwe Anisio Roba, adding “We must establish more vocational schools to train our youth.

Joseph Alex Lemi, the principle of Lainya vocational institute agitated for upgrading of the institution to include carpentry and joinery, agriculture, building and aquaculture.

(ST)