Addressing the education and training needs of the tea sector in Kenya: The case of the School of Agriculture and Biotechnology at Karatina University

Abstract

In Kenya, personnel working in the tea sector are drawn from various fields of specialization such as general agriculture, horticulture, engineering and economics. There are no special training programmes to train personnel at degree, diploma and certificate levels on tea in the country. The training needs assessment carried out by Tetralink Taylor and Associates East Africa in 2010, observed that there are training needs for each segment along the tea value chain. It is against this background that the School of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Karatina University recognized the training gap in tea value chain and decided to design and mount specialized programmes in tea. The paper was informed by the Training Needs Report of 2010 by the Tetralink Taylor and Associates East Africa and other secondary data from published articles on tea. From the documentary analysis, it was established that training of personnel for tea sector was long overdue. Karatina University has taken the right direction towards this crucial aspect of human resource capacity building. It is recommended that Karatina University be a centre of excellence for tea information resource and develop more tea academic programmes for manpower training at bachelors, master and doctorate degree levels.