Unveiling ceremony of a Luban Workshop held at Machakos University in Kenya on the morning of December 14, 2019.

A ceremony was held at Machakos University in Kenya on the morning of December 14, 2019 (local time) to mark the unveiling of a Luban Workshop in commemoration of the 56th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral ties between China and Kenya.

The latest Luban Workshop was jointly built by Tianjin City Vocational College, Chinese telecommunications leader Huawei and Machakos University in response to a pledge made by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing in September 2018.

Speaking at the high-level gathering, Xi said that China would set up 10 Luban Workshops in Africa to offer vocational training for local young people.

The Kenya Luban Workshop is the second built by north China's Tianjin on the African continent. It is aimed at nurturing high-end talents for the country in the field of information communication technology (ICT) and creating a new chapter in which the two countries can further strengthen their bilateral cooperation in vocational education and deepen people-to-people exchange in the years to come.

The Kenya Luban Workshop has been built in accordance with China-proposed international standards on vocational education and the instruction model of EPIP (engineering, practice, innovation and project). Moreover, it has been divided into four sections, which are reserved for teaching areas in connection with cloud-network integration, big data, intelligent city and online class.

A photo of the Kenya Luban Workshop.

Apart from providing local students with a four-year undergraduate education in clouding computing and information security management, the Kenya Luban Workshop is also expected to hold technological training for local enterprises.

Zhao Xiyuan, a counselor at the Chinese embassy in Kenya, also attended the unveiling ceremony. He said that the Kenya Luban Workshop would make full use of its high-quality vocational education resources, provide local students with formal education and produce technological personnel in a drive to promote the economic and social growth of Kenya.

In his speech, Bai Haili, deputy director of Tianjin Municipal Education Commission, emphasized that concerted efforts should be made by Tianjin City Vocational College, Machakos University and Huawei to build the Kenya Luban Workshop into the most advanced one in Africa, leveraging its radiating effect in leading the development of neighboring countries, providing Kenya and even the entire continent with a reference and applicable model in the cultivation of ICT talents, bringing more tangible benefits to local students and firms and making more contributions to Kenyan social and economic development and modernization.

Cooperation agreement signed on the Kenya Luban Workshop Initiation Ceremony. 

Veronica, a Kenyan teacher who received educational training in the Tianjin-based vocational college, said that the Chinese discipline-construction featuring an integrated development between industry and education, universities and enterprises, and occupation and on-campus studies, coupled with the EPIP instruction model, has produced sound effects in the cultivation of ICT talents, adding that she will integrate what she has learned in China into her future instruction.

Those in attendance at the initiation ceremony also included Joe Mucheru, Kenyan Minister of Information and Communication; Liu Dongyun, deputy head of Hebei District in Tianjin; Reuben Mutiso, head of the Development Commission of Konza Technology City; and representatives from Tianjin City Vocational College, Machakos University and Huawei.