Technical and Vocational Education and Training, Entrepreneurship Training and Success of Start Ups Amongst Equity Group Foundation Tvet Program Graduates

Abstract

Launch and subsequent growth of start-ups remains a concern for policy makers, practitioners and researchers. This is mainly explained by the fact that even after taking people through entrepreneurship and technical training, a good percentage still end up looking for employment. Opportunities for start-ups are expanding, but most people lack the education, skills, and knowledge to take advantage of these opportunities. It is critical that TVET prepare students for the marketplace, business world and most especially for self-employment. This informed this study as its intent was determining how TVET and entrepreneurship training impacts success of start-ups amongst Equity Group Foundation TVET graduates. It was to determine how TVET and entrepreneurship training impacts success of start-ups amongst Equity Group Foundation TVET graduates. The theories underpinning this study included identity empowerment theory and resource-based view theory. Qualitative design was used for the study. The target population of the current study is the 118 graduates who have already completed the course as they were also trained on entrepreneurship. This study therefore focused on 10% of the target population giving a total of 12 respondents. The study used primary data to be collected using a focus group discussion and collected data was analyzed using content analysis. The study concluded that the TVET and entrepreneurship training programme influenced the success of start-ups among Equity Group Foundation TVET graduates. This can be attributed to the fact that the training programme acquainted the graduates with requisite skills that are relevant in today's job market. The programme also gave the graduates exposure to real life business environments and provided them with life skills necessary to run a successful business. From the findings it recommends that the stakeholders involved in the provision of the Equity Group TVET and entrepreneurship training programshould increase their awareness campaigns about the existence of the program. This would attract more scholars to the programme and thereby create a bigger impact on the society as more youths would acquire market skill that are on demand. This would aid in solving the unemployment problem in Kenya as many would also start their own businesses.