Kenya ripe for specialist retail curriculum

Nearly one million young Kenyans have recently completed their national secondary school examinations, Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). A large portion of them will be looking to proceed to college when their results are released in a few weeks. Top of their mind will be the question ‘What course do I pursue?’.

The reality is that there are hundreds of courses, but as we have seen over the last 10 years, the work environment is changing rapidly, such that every three to five years, new roles emerge that no one anticipated would become relevant or be in demand in future.

Unimaginable careers have been spawned as the business and technology environments evolve, including roles like Social Media Community Manager.

This evolution is expected to increase as the nature of work changes, with remarkable roles arising in specialist sectors such as retail. Industry insiders say that retail businesses, whether general or with certain specialty areas like food and beverages, require particular skills that are largely gained on the job.

But as Kenya’s economy blends with global and regional trends and investors identify newer opportunities, it will be crucial for formal training to complement on-the-job learning.

Recently, in sharing her experiences during a panel discussion with members of the Retail Trade Association of Kenya, Wandia Gichuru, the co-founder and managing director of Vivo Active Wear, a local fashion and apparel company, revealed some of the challenges that Kenya’s nascent sector faces.

One of the biggest gaps, she noted, is lack of people who technically grasp the apparel industry and are trained fabric specialists.

On the upside, through constant engagements between industry players and the government, the need to recognise these realities has been brought to the attention of respective administrators.

A recent survey, for instance, by the National Industrial Training Authority (NITA), revealed that the larger retailers with more structured human resourse management processes and structures have a larger opportunity for specially trained retail executives.

Upcoming retail outlets also expressed a desire to scale up operations with professional handlers in key roles such as product sourcing, supplier management and customer service.

NITA, working through Sector Training Committees (STC), oversees the upskilling of workers in specific sectors. The STC in charge of the Retail sector is referred to as, Commercial, Distributive, Wholesale, Retail Trade and allied agencies (CDWR) and is engaging with sector players to establish a specialist certified retail curriculum.

Kenya’s retail sector comprises not only the commonly acknowledged supermarkets outlets, but also restaurants and retail outlets that specialise in niche products.

There is also a large informal retail sector that would prosper through acquired formal skills. All these present a huge opportunity for specialised training in the sector.

We are confident that a move to introduce such courses is timely and relevant.

It also creates an opportunity for job creation, as many of those gaining this training may opt to set up their own outlets.

As Kenya’s population grows, the formalisation of retail will gather pace with rapid urbanisation.

Multi-agency effort

Already, this is evident in the way some supermarkets have expanded and several local and international franchises of specialist businesses such as restaurants are setting up branches across the country.

The upshot of these developments is that there is a dearth of formal curricula that students interested in specialist retail careers can pursue.

To deliver this successfully though, a multi-agency effort is necessary, in which NITA works together with the training institutions, and industry players to put together relevant training content and calendars.

This way, addressing internship, apprenticeship and employment capabilities will be simpler and we will be on the path to implementing standards of practice that match global ones.