DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
5.3 CHALENGES TO EFFECTIVE EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AS OUTLINED BY STAKEHOLDERS
5.3.2 Technical College Graduates
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teaching the theoretical aspect of it in the whole classes and also teaches the practical…”
On the training of teachers, Participant 1 alleges that:
“…. if the training is given to teachers, update their …eer experience, it is the same that they will bring; because if a teacher is trained, he will not come back and sit down idle. He will try imparting the knowledge to the students because he has acquired new knowledge ….you see now teachers are always sent for training to update themselves so that they can now come and train the students, now when the training of the teachers are not looked into, how would you every day teach the same thing, no update”
In the first excerpt above, it can be seen in lines 1-5 that there is a shortage of technical personnel (teaching and non-teaching), while lines 7-8 shows lack of qualified technical personnel. In the second excerpt, it is indicative in lines 1-3, 5 and 7 that there is lack of staff development with regard to teachers training.
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limitation whereby you are limited can go out and basic knowledge that you can just acquire and feed for yourself for a while but other industrial skills that are high in grade and level were not given to us”
From the excerpt above as stated by Participant 1, one could deduce from lines 1-5 that his experience of the GTC programme preparation was negative with regard to a limited curriculum. From his comment is evident that the curriculum is not aligned to the needs of industry.
5.3.2.2 Lack of adequately trained personnel
In response to adequately trained personnel, one among the four participants shared his view on that as highlighted in the excerpt below:
P3: “…. we never had enough manpower because those days the Nigerian system of education was more or less arts in nature… few teachers were graduates of even the same Technical College because there were no graduates from the universities that were able to teach the courses adequately … I mean they (teachers) too were involved in this industrial training and they were also opportune to go to the roadside artisan shops to still teach themselves, involve in practical, but the practical was not back very well with theoretical
knowledge because we don’t have grounded vocational technical teachers …”
Line one of Participant 3‟s comment indicates a negative experience in relation to having adequately trained manpower. From the excerpt it is seen that the number of manpower was inadequate, besides lines 4-8 shows that the teachers they had then were not properly trained (lacked practical and theoretical knowledge).
5.3.2.3 Lack of functional modern equipment
Two among the four participants responded to functional modern equipment; this they made known in their comments:
P3: “…. then we never had good equipment, the ones we had were almost obsolete
…”
93 The second participant said:
P4: “…. I saw the machines materials used for helping ourselves as students as things that were all worn out, in the sense that we were not making appropriate use of them, when you got to those machines they will assist you less than what you expected, and my stay as a student for a period of three years till I left those machines were still there not changed … government should look into
Government Technical College … upgrade the facilities that are meant for upgrading, those facilities should be upgraded so that the students would be up to date and learn with modern facilities equipment…”
Participant 3 in the first line of his comment made it clear that his experience was negative in the sense that the Technical College never had good equipment, besides the only ones they had were obsolete. Likewise, Participant 4 commented in lines 1-3 that his own experience was also negative with regard to functional equipment. Both participants had negative experiences of the GTC programme preparation. However, in lines 4-7 of Participant 4‟s comment it is seen that for the period he was in Technical College there was no trace of government‟s intervention in terms of upgrading the equipment to a modern one.
5.3.2.4 Lack of training materials
One in four of the participants responded to this as shown in the excerpt below:
P3: “....we were managing what I will call alternative materials or tools to enhance our training…)”
The comment above shows a negative experience of Participant 3 in relation to the provision of training materials for the training of Technical College graduates as clearly stated in the excerpt.
5.3.2.5 Lack of funds
From the literature it is evident that the funding of Technical College programmes lies within the jurisdiction of the government. Among the four participants, one
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acknowledged this in his his point of view on funding Technical College programmes.
This was revealed in his comment:
P4: “…. with this as an experience GTC lack funding … government should look into Government Technical College by putting fund into it …”
From both lines of the excerpt above, it is seen that Participant 4‟s experience was negative with regard to funding of Technical College programmes. This shows that GTC lacks funds for effective implementation of the Technical College programme.