By Eddah Waithaka
Principal Secretary for Industry Dr. Juma Mukhwana pressed Kenyatta University students to aggressively pursue new skills and manufacturing careers on Tuesday, officially opening the 2026 Career Week with an optimistic report on Kenya’s industrial sector.
Speaking to a hall of students, academics, and industry partners, Dr. Mukhwana framed the event as a critical bridge between academia and a dynamic job market.
“We teach and then we leave the students to navigate the difficult world,” he said, before thanking the university for creating a forum where “young people have an opportunity to meet and interact with people from industry.”
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The PS challenged the institution to stay agile. “Skills in our industry are very dynamic, they’re changing every day,” he stated, encouraging the university to develop new programs that ensure graduates “keep pace with the real world.”
Directly addressing students, Dr. Mukhwana urged them to look beyond traditional classroom learning toward high-demand fields like artificial intelligence, software engineering, and networking.
“We want them to be very innovative, to go out of their way to acquire new skills,” he advised, highlighting the rise of automation and smart factories.
He then dispelled what he called pessimistic narratives about manufacturing, revealing robust growth. “Let me assure you… manufacturing employs about 500,000 people and every week we have two to three new factories starting,” Dr. Mukhwana declared.
Citing Kenya’s wealth creation, he noted, “If you are to rank the 50 richest people in Kenya, 45 are from industry.” He suggested negative talk often aims to deter competition.
As concrete proof of sector appetite, the PS shared that a new County Aggregation and Industrial Park in Kirinyaga, built to host 8 factories, attracted 68 applicants.
“That tells you what is happening,” he said.Dr. Mukhwana called on young Kenyans to drive the country’s industrial transformation by adding value to agricultural produce.
“Move into the manufacturing space because that is where opportunities are that is where the future is,” he concluded, assuring the audience the sector holds “a lot of opportunity, not issues.”
The 19th edition of the career week, themed around university-industry linkages, promises students days of direct engagement with potential employers and innovators.
