Absa, Ajira enter deal to train 1m youth on tech skills in one year

The Ajira Digital programme will train one million youths in the next one year, following a new partnership with the private sector.

Ajira Digital has partnered with Absa Bank Kenya to train young people in digital skills and financial literacy to increase employment and entrepreneurship under the second phase of the programme implemented by the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa).

The partnership will see Absa Bank link its job training, scholarship and internship initiative, ReadytoWork with Ajira Digital site.

Applicants will be taken through a certification programme with different modules using computer, mobile phones or laptops and then issued certificates on completion.

The bank is also investing Sh50 million in developing ReadytoWork app for downloading or accessed on the Ajira portal for convenience.

The partnership is expected to connect youths with employment at a time when about 738,000 jobs were lost last year with young people being the hardest hit.

“We are slowly coming out of an environment where many people lost their jobs. We see development of new tools to support remote working and new ways to working on the digital front going to create more jobs,” Absa Bank Kenya managing director Jeremy Awori said.

The public-private partnership programs follows a time when unemployment rate in Kenya was recorded at 6.6 percent in the three months to March, from 5.2 percent in the same period last year.

At least one million youth also enter the job market from universities, colleges and technical institutes every year.