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Youth unemployment has remained a serious problem in Kenya. Relevant education system and skill training programmes such as the Youth Polytechnics (YPs) have been initiated to solve this problem. YPs were established to train school leavers in skills for wage and self employment. Since the inception of the new 8:4:4 pre-vocational curriculum, it is not clear as to whether YPs should reinforce the skills given by the primary school or not; hence the need to investigate the role of the YPs in the context of the 8:4:4 system of education. The study was designed to investigate the role of the youth Polytechnic Programme in the context of the 8:4:4 system of education. In selecting the youth polytechnics and primary School, clustering and stratified random sampling procedures were used. The divisions formed the clusters, and those with more than two youth polytechnics had the youth polytechnics selected randomly the criteria for selecting primary schools is based on the fact that they had to be adjacent to the youth polytechnics.

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Rosemary Khitieyi Imonje is presently a lecturer, teaching Curriculum Studies in the Department of Educational Administration and Planning, and Distance Studies at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Rosemary has a long teaching experience and career of over 25 years; having taught at Senende Boys High School, Kilimambogo Teacher Training College.

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