Camosun College is playing an important role in the KBEST-12 project, an initiative under the Kenya Blue Economy Skills Training Program (KBEST) and administered by Colleges and Institutes Canada.
This Fall, students from Mombasa spent a semester at Camosun's School of Business, taking courses in entrepreneurship, leadership, operations, and sustainability.
The project is changing how Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is done in Kenya. It's opening up new opportunities for young people, particularly women, girls, and vulnerable populations, to acquire skills within the blue economy through digitization of curriculum and online learning.
KBEST-12 is a collaborative effort between Camosun College, Algonquin College, and Georgian College with Kenyan institutions led by the Kenya School of TVET (KSTVET). The project focuses on building sustainable capacity within Kenya's TVET sector to deliver high-quality online and blended learning programs aligned with the country's Blue Economy priorities.
"Camosun's role within this exciting partnership is to bring our expertise in instructional design and online learning," says Carl Everitt, Associate Dean, School of Business. "We're contributing to the development of training programs, resources, and strategies to help Kenyan educators deliver inclusive, technology-driven education."
Using a "train-the-trainer" model, the partners will train 16-20 trainers from KSTVET with seven trainers traveling to Canada for advanced training while gaining hands-on experience with digital learning tools and methodologies. These trainers will return to Kenya to facilitate the training of 96 instructors from KBEST partner institutions in 2026. Camosun wrapped up the first mission in November where the Canadian consortium trained 20 master trainers from KSTVET and three other hub institutions at KSTVET in Nairobi.
"I learned so much from the diversity of the instructors," says Julia Grav, Camosun College Instructor and Co-facilitator. "Participating in this interdisciplinary opportunity helped open my eyes to the way in which Colleges and Institutes Canada is facilitating equity-driven educational initiatives."
"This project exemplifies the power of international collaboration," said Marius Langeland, Project Manager at Camosun College. "By sharing our expertise in online learning, we're helping Kenyan institutions create flexible, inclusive education pathways that will transform lives and strengthen the Blue Economy workforce."
