Professionals in the agricultural sector have recently come up with an online platform that will provide human resource information for graduates and institutions of higher learning, in Kenya.
The eCapacities online platform will be beneficial to learning institutions to track progress of their graduates and build a better alumni forum.
Prof Irene Anoor-Frempong, Director of research and innovation at the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), said the platform will also weed out duplication of research work among students.
“The research that university students undertake should be aimed at bringing in new information. Unfortunately, there is a lot of copying of colleagues’ academic work, which does not bring in new knowledge,” she said.
She also stated that the forum will be used to improve their product offerings, bringing in new ideas and innovations to serve needs of the market.
Professionals in the agriculture sector will be among the first beneficiaries, since FARA is mainly an agricultural research institution. Also, job seekers, institutions and the job market of Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Ghana, will be leading countries live on the platform.
According to the Professor, “It will help to harness the expertise that the country is endowed with, and compare it to the gaps that are still in the market”.
The four main portals will include the knowledge gap portal, supply side portal that brings together institutions, demand side portal with organisations seeking employees and the graduate portal. Graduates will easily access work opportunities, identify career paths based on market demand for specific skills and connect with mentors to promote their career progression.
“The portal will capture a person’s competencies, in that a person can enter as many of their skills as possible. The country can prioritise important issues of national development through use of factual data from the platform, and expect results from projects that you have put money in,” she said.
