The Anchor october 2011: Here comes Machakos University

Machakos University at last
Machakos Technical Training Institute finally elevated

By Anchor Reporter

 FINALLY, Machakos University Collage has been created. It becomes the successor of the current Machakos Technical Training Institute, via Gazette Notice Number 130 of September 16, 2011.

It will operate as Campus of Kenyatta University, with the status if the Legal Notice being Transitional only. The order requires Kenyatta University to initiate the necessary administrative and legal measures to ensure that the University College becomes a fully pledged University.

This development comes after over 50 years  of waiting. It is a surprise development to many who have been waiting for the actualization of a pledge by the Government to make the Institute the first Eastern province’s fully fledged national polytechnic.

During the MTTI’s 6th graduation ceremony presided over by the minister for Science and Technology Dr Noah Wekesa in 2008, it was announced that the institute would become a National Polytechnic.

But this did not happen ,thanks to typical red tape and understandable bureaucracy associated  with Government.

After years of build-up under the stewardship of the Principal Mrs Mary Muthoka, there is no doubt that the time for MTTI to become a university could be better than now.

The name- Machakos Technical Training Institute- is associated with the very beginning of technical training in the expansive region and is viewed by many as a treasured graduation from what was  initially a technical school

The institute was started in January 1957 as a rural technical training school offering tailoring and carpentry courses. It was then run by the local county council before the government took it over and renamed it the Machakos Technical Trade School a year later.

It was one of the nineteen government national technical secondary schools which were upgraded to post secondary training institutes with the advent of the 8-4-4 system of education in 1985.

The secondary status was phased out in 1987 with the last batch of high school students completing their K.C.S.E in November 1987.

The institute currently offers 20 different training programmes spread across 60 different courses and it remains to be seen what will be the fate of middle level courses taken by students unable to attain university education

The training programmes which have been fully established in the last 15 years include accounting, business administration and management, carpentry, clothing technology and co-operative management. This training has been so perfected at MTTI that the institution is a Centre of Excellence in Clothing Technology.

In addition there are courses in Electrical Engineering, Electronics, Food and Beverage production service, mechanical and motor vehicle engineering, marketing management, secretarial studies, supplies management and welding and fabrication.

While many parents have previously been forced to take their children elsewhere to pursue higher education, this development will certainly bring a sigh of relief.

The Machakos University Collage comes to join the South Eastern University Collage(SEUCO), whose Machakos Campus opened doors for Under Graduate and Masters students a month ago. Other universities in the municipality include St Pauls University, Nazarene University and the ever foot dragging Scott Christian  University, which seems not to know what to do with its Charter handed some years ago and had been dithering due to governance concerns.

The turning of the institute into a University  comes with  a demand for improvement of the current infrastructure.

The Universities will also put pressure to Machakos Town to increase its capacity to deal with such a teaming number of institutions of Higher learning, which come with an equally damning demand for services and infrastructure. Observers see this as a turning point for the sleepy town that is over 100 years old and has little to show for it.

The development comes at a time MTTI is about to complete a 50 bed capacity hotel that is planned to be a training facility for Tourism students on the same line with Nairobi’s  Utalii Hotel. Its Le Technish Restaurant has been making the foundation for the establishment of the hotel, bringing competitive service in hotel management to Machakos.

The Le Technish restaurant with modern well equipped facilities and which is  situated within its compound apart from acting as a training ground for students taking catering courses also supplements the institutes income as it hosts seminars and special parties.