Factors Affecting Youth Accessibility to Vocational Education Training (VET) in Singida Municipality

This study examines the factors affecting youth accessibility to vocationaleducation training (VET) in Singida Municipality. Random and purposivesampling techniques were used to obtain a total of 114 youth enrolled, graduatesand those who did not acquire training from VET colleges for surveyquestionnaires and 10 key respondents’ informants for interviews. Data werecollected through questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews.Qualitative data were coded and transcribed and subsequently thematicallyanalyzed, with regard to quantitative data: both descriptive and inferentialanalysis was done including the Likert scale and binary regression adopted tomeasure factors affecting youth accessibility to vocational education training(VET). The findings revealed that the age, household size, few number ofinstitutes, awareness, readiness of youth was positively affecting access to VET.The study concluded that, youths who do not have any other opportunity ofpursuing studies and ultimately get employment, need to have access to VET asone of the means of acquiring skills demanded by the labour market. The studyrecommends that, more efforts should be placed in attracting more youths to joinVET studies as a means of increasing their employability by conducting massawareness programmes on the need, availability and accessibility to VET. Also,efforts to increase the number of VET colleges in Tanzania should go in handwith extension of tertiary education loans provided by the Higher EducationStudents’ Loan Board (HESLB) to cover more VET programmes as a means ofenabling youth to overcome inaffordability caused by large family sizes.