The management, students and the community are celebrating the elevation of Gusii Institute of Technology (GIT) to a national polytechnic, Kisii National Polytechnic.
In an interview with us on Thursday, the college’s Principal Athanas Mokaya expressed his profound joy to have one of the longest serving institutions in the country promoted to a national status.
“We are so happy with the step to elevate the college. This will enable us to open out our programmes to cater for various interests," said Mokaya.
"We will collaborate with established universities to offer undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in areas where we have staff and equipment,” added Mokaya.
He added: “We are, at the moment, rebranding our logo and letterhead, and restructuring our departments where necessary.”
He said the community would benefit from the upgrading of the institute through a provision of advanced quality education to students to fit in the marketplace.
“The community will benefit a lot from the institution. As we assume the status, we are as well planning to offer advanced programmes that will equip students with the practical skill to meet the requirements of the employer,” he said.
However, he noted that they don’t have enough facilities that will accommodate the overwhelming number of students they are expecting.
“We are overstretched with existing infrastructural facilities. We currently have 3,000 students, the maximum number we are able to handle," said the Principal.
"Our hostels can only accommodate a maximum number of 500 students,” revealed Mokaya.
“We are putting up tuition complex funded by the government of Kenya and the college that would address a shortage of the facilities issue upon completion,” he added.
"Currently, we have 190 teaching staff and 80 non-teaching staff. We will be required to have more staff so that we can effectively deliver," he said.
" I, therefore, ask the government to support us in funding infrastructural activities and employ more staff, if ensuring high standards of education is anything to go by,” he said.
Even so, he hailed the government of Kenya and ADP for sponsoring his engineering and applied sciences staff for further training, and funding supply of equipment in the college’s school of automotive engineering.
The Ministry of Education on February 18 this year, upgraded eight technical training institutes to fully fledged national polytechnics, increasing the number to 10 up from 2.
Among other technical institutes upgraded by Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i include Kabete TTI, Kitale TTI, Meru TTI, Embu TTI, Nyeri TTI, Sigalala TTI and North Eastern Province TTI.
Ever since the upgrading of Nairobi and Mombasa national polytechnics into technical universities few years ago, only Kisumu and Eldoret remained in the status serving the entire country.