89 students graduated from the Presidential Digital Talent Programme

This is the second group after the first graduated last year in a programmme implemented through a Public and Private Sector Collaboration to build excellent talent to effectively steer ICT in the public and private sectors.

Another Cohort of 400 were taken on-board in August 2016 while 500 graduates will be recruited into the programme every year until 2020.

The PDTP is a government programme that runs for five years. The programme was launched in February 2015 by President Uhuru Kenyatta in an aim to offer employment to more IT graduates and also improve the standards of ICT in the country, especially in the public sector.

Under PDTP, identified talented ICT and engineering graduates go through internship programmes in the private and public sectors to hone their skills. The interns are mentored by experienced professionals and experts on private sector business practices and government operations.

The event was graced by ICT cabinet secretary, Joe Mucheru and Education CS, Fred Matiang’i among other guests from both the public and private sector. The graduates had gone through an intensive 12 months on-the-job training, in both sectors (public and private).

According to CS Mucheru, the programme is key to addressing ICT gaps in both public and private sectors. “This programme is designed to build and entrench ICT capacity within Government to ensure ICT effectiveness and efficiency in public service delivery. It is in line with Vision 2030 and the National ICT Master Plan Human Capital Pillar that seeks to address ICT skills gap in order to improve public service delivery,” said Mr Mucheru.

The interns were placed in 14 government ministries, where they worked on various projects for 10 months and then later on they were transferred to the private sector where they worked for 2 months. Out of the initial 100 interns admitted back in 2015, only 89 graduated after 11 dropped out for various reasons.

By the time of graduation, 45 out of the 89 graduates had already secured jobs in various minitries and also in the private sector. The remaining 44 were offered jobs in the Ministry of ICT by the CS, Joe Mucheru himself.

With a 100% placement, CS Fred Matiang’I declared the programme a success and lauded the president for raising the intake for this year to 400 interns. The programme is open to all IT-related courses graduates and we will definetely let you know when applications are open.