Kippra rolls out mentorship programmme for varsity students

Kenya Institute for Public Policy and Research Analysis (Kippra) has rolled out a mentorship programme for universities in a bid to help bridge the gap between academic and policy research done by government institutions.

Kippra Executive Director Rose Ngugi said they had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Turkana University College to deliver the programme through a partnership with the National Youth Council, Youth Enterprise Fund, SME Support Centre and Directorate of National Cohesion and Values.

“We will support Turkana University College to conduct research in unique fields like dryland farming, oil and gas, human evolution and maritime which are relevant sectors and link with available research materials at their disposal to inform workable public policies,” Dr Ngugi said.

She said that university students are the future in terms of development agenda, and they need to be mainstreamed in the policy process at the very beginning so that they start understanding and providing clear direction on where they want their future to be.

Turkana University College Acting Principal Prof George Cheminingwa said the partnership with the institute will ease the research process for students.

“Kippra Mentorship Programme for Universities will be critical in the creation of a platform for sharing relevant materials that they will rely on to develop policy research and analysis in niche areas for specific universities and linking it to academic,” Prof Shihanya said.

On his part, University Council representative Eng Justus Wambutura said that building capacity for the institution to conduct more research will translate to more solutions to the local problems.

Eng Wambutura said the university has a lot of courses that are tailor-made like dryland farming so that locals themselves are able to take part in addressing food shortage.

“We also have courses in blue economy, oil and gas, maritime and human evolution biology which we partner with internationally recognised universities to cut a niche worldwide,” he said.

KIPPRA seeks to engage in capacity building initiatives that first aims at creating awareness and developing the capacity of the respective University communities in understanding the evidence-based public policymaking process.