Design of School-Based Enterprise for Competency-Based Training Programmes
Timothy Crentsil
Kumasi Technical University
Samuel Owusu Mensah
Kumasi Technical University
Michael Obeng Nyarko
Kumasi Technical University
Keywords: Curriculum, School-based, Competency-based, Enterprise, Training programmes
Abstract
JICA performed the Study for Development of a Master Plan to Strengthen Technical Education in the Republic of Ghana in 2001 at the request of the Ghanaian government. The study proposed the adoption of competency-based training (CBT) in Polytechnic Education (now Technical Universities) as a way to address the widening gap between the competencies required by companies and the skills of trained graduates. This advice was followed, and in 2004/2005 the NPT/NUFFIC CBT Curriculum in Fashion and Textiles, titled "Design and Production of Fashion and Textiles," was launched. It was successfully piloted and reviewed in October 2009. According to preliminary analysis, the new HND CBT Fashion and Textiles program lacked practical entrepreneurship competencies. In order to build a conceptual model of SBE for the HND CBT Fashion and Textiles program at Ghanaian Technical Universities, the study set out to explore a few best practice approaches to CBT business education in fashion and textiles. The descriptive-survey and case study methodologies were used in the study, which followed a mixed methodology approach. The survey found that graduates do not display PBCs on the job and that the HND Fashion and Textiles degree today has less of a connection to the real world of work. This conclusion from case studies involving students supported earlier findings of researchers by Stern et al. (1994), Gugerty et al. (2008), Stratton (2008), Smith et al. (n.d.), and DECA (n.d.), which indicated that SBEs are effective in ensuring productive education with sufficient transferable skills that graduates can use in their future careers. Using this information as a foundation, a conceptual model of SBE has been created and will be incorporated into the new HND CBT Fashion and Textiles curriculum. According to the study's findings, if PBCs are possible to obtain, the educational system has neglected a significant number of competency areas, necessitating a revisitation by planners and trainers. The new HND CBT Fashion and Textiles curriculum should emphasize SBE integration as a suggested intervention that could help the situation.
