Scandal At The Kenya Power Training School Now Institute of Energy Studies and Research

In 2015, KPLC elevated its wholly owned school, Kenya Power Training School to the Institute of Energy Studies and Research (IESR), to “provide training solutions for the power sector in the areas of generation, transmission, distribution and inter-connectivity”.

The Institute of Energy Studies and Research is a Regional Centre of Excellence in Energy Training and Capacity Building. The institute offers Professional courses to corporate organizations, private companies and contractors in the fields of Energy, Electrical, Mechanical, Fiber Optics and Management. The Institute also offers tailor made courses in any topic within the fields.

The KPLC owned institute is registered as a Technical Industrial and Vocational Education Institution offering skills aimed at realizing the vision 2030.

Those who scored D+ and below have a chance to join craft certificate courses at IESR before advancing to diploma level. Form four leavers, regardless of grades, can be trained as Eletrical Wireman in a course that takes three months.

The government had announced that learners in technical and vocational institutions will receive as much as Sh40,000 loans annually from the Higher Education Loans Board.

The government also to provide a Sh30,000 capitation for each TVET trainee. It reduced the annual training fee from Sh92,000 to Sh56,420.

TVET institutions have 382,000 learners. Together with new applicants, they will have their fees fully covered. However, here’s where the challenge with IESR which is registered as TVET comes in.

Government sponsored students sent to the institution under the Kenya Universities and Colleges Placement Services (KUCCPS) should be subject to the benefits above as opposed to privately sponsored meaning they’re to pay partially part of the fees. This is not the case on IESR as Kenya Insights has learnt.

The Kenya Power owned college is forcing Government Sponsored students to the same amount of fee as Self Sponsored students. That is 104 k per year. They are saying there is no difference between government and self sponsored students. Puzzling that they’re running the Programme in two modules.

The government has subsidized the fee of Government Sponsored students by Sh.30, 000 meaning, the maximum fee that each government sponsored students must pay is Sh50, 000 why do they keep insisting the Sh100, 000 and why does the institution claim to be privately owned yet it’s publicly listed? Dr Patrick Mwangi the deputy director of IESR should be answerable.

Not unless the institution is not getting the TVET fundings then it doesn’t make absolute sense why KUCCPS students should pay the same fee as private even in public universities it doesn’t work that way.

Vacational courses and TVET programs are out in place to help even the poorest students gain right education and experience and by locking out some given the high fees is unfair. The ministry must therefore move with speed to find out what’s going on in this school and if determined as a scamming scheme then respective actions be taken.