Meru University of Science and Technology (MUSTS) hosted Partners from the Industry and Professional Examination Boards to sensitize first year students on the relevance of professional and short courses in the contemporary labour market. Representatives from the Human Resource Management Professionals Examination Board – HRMPEB (Fredrick Laibon, Bradley Chepkwony, and Elizabeth Gakii), Kenya Institute of Supplies Examination Board – KISEB (Dr Fred Ongisa – CEO, Audrey Korir and Juliet Mudibo), International Computer Driving License – ICDL (Stella Chellangat and Joy Mwangi), African Advanced Level Telecommunications Institute – AFRALTI (Joyce Waweru and Robinson Wanjohi), KASNEB (Antony Kimani and J. Mutwiri) and a resource person, Dr Gladys Bunyasi from KCA University graced the occasion.

The MUST management led by our Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Romanus Odhiambo, recognizes the importance of professional and short courses in the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Kenya’s Vision 2030. MUST has, therefore, established over a hundred courses targeting various categories of trainees. These courses come in handy with respective degree certificates that make the learner well balanced and more competitive in the labour market.

Professional courses are meant for those pursuing certain career paths. Professions take longer to develop and require candidates to pursue and successfully complete professional examinations. The training, examination and certification of professional courses is done by the respective examinations body. Once the candidate is through with such examinations, they are expected to register with their professional bodies, after which they can be licensed to practice as experts in the respective area. MUST has partnered with key professional bodies in order to provide a conducive atmosphere and a platform on which these professional courses are offered.

Further, courses for Continuous Professional Development (CPD) are also offered. This provides a combination of ideas, approaches and techniques that enable a practitioner to manage own learning and growth. The focus of CPD is to acquaint the professional with the emerging issues through micro-credentialing.

While professional courses get one registered as a professional practitioner in a certain discipline, short courses can be done by anyone irrespective of their discipline. A short course takes a relatively short time to train, ranging from days to weeks.  Whereas some short courses are relevant to specific degree programmes, others can be done by anyone. Furthermore, we encourage learners to have multi-disciplinary skills.  Short courses not only make students become employable but also enable them become employers.

MUST offers a variety of both professional and short courses at competitive rates. Click this link to see the various short courses offered at MUST: https://www.must.ac.ke/short-courses/