Industrial attachment and graduate employability in technical vocational education and training: a case of agriculture education in Zimbabwe
- Authors: Edziwa, Xavier
- Date: 2022-04
- Subjects: Vocational education -- Zimbabwe , College graduates -- Employment , Technical education -- Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral , Thesis
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/56022 , vital:54939
- Description: Institutions of higher learning, the world over, have adopted means of producing graduates that are work-ready and Zimbabwe is no exception. In Zimbabwe, a Commission of Inquiry into Education and Training recommended the introduction of vocational education and the introduction of a programme that improves the work-readiness of higher education graduates. This culminated in the institutions of higher education introducing industrial attachments in their curricular. This study was designed to explore the nature and implementation of industrial attachment by agricultural technical and vocational education and training institutions in Zimbabwe, as a way of enhancing students’ graduate attributes. It was done to hopefully improve policy and practice in the use of industrial attachment in imparting skills among college students. The research presented in this thesis, focuses on three case studies that were eclectically sampled, and data collected through focus group discussion with students and face-to-face individual interviews with college academia and workplace mentors. The study commenced by first establishing what stakeholders perceived as the employability skills expected of a graduate who has gone through an agricultural technical and vocational and training programme, and then explored how the IA programmes have been operationalised. Kolb’s experiential learning theory was used in the designing of research instruments and answering the research questions. The study established that the students generally perceived graduate attributes differently from academia and industry personnel. It was also established that current industrial attachment practices in agricultural training appear to favour production of graduates that are geared towards looking for employment, as opposed to the students’ perceptions that the 21st higher education institutions should produce graduates who create employment. While industrial attachment has been adopted by the institutions, this study identified a myriad of challenges that call for vii improvement in the practice if students are to benefit from the industrial attachment endeavours. The study ends by proposing a model that embraces students’ voice and is deemed to produce agricultural technical and vocational education and training graduates who are employment creators. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04
Assessment of the microbial quality of various domestic rainwater harvesting systems and the suitability of a nano based treatment method
- Authors: Malema, Mokaba Shirley
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: thesis , text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/110218 , vital:33249 , https://dx.doi.org/10.21504/10962/110218
- Description: Thesis (PhD)--Rhodes University, Faculty of Science, Chemistry, 2020.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2020
A social realist study of employability development in engineering education
- Authors: Nudelman, Gabrielle Reeve
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Critical realism , Electrical engineering -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa -- Cape Town , Employability , Career education -- South Africa -- Cape Town , School-to-work transition -- South Africa -- Cape Town
- Language: English
- Type: thesis , text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/62884 , vital:28307
- Description: This qualitative case study of a course pairing offered to final-year electrical engineering students at the University of Cape Town in 2015 was undertaken in order to better understand the ways in which participation in undergraduate courses can prepare engineering students for the workplace. The course pairing consisted of New Venture Planning and Professional Communication Studies. While the former aimed to expose students to the knowledge relating to starting a new business, the latter focused on teaching students how to create written and oral texts to support such an endeavour. Using Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism as a theoretical underlabourer, the study develops understandings regarding the generative mechanisms at work during the two courses. In support of this, the study posits an understanding of employability that moves beyond the acquisition of discrete workplace skills. Rather, employability is conceptualised as discursive transformation, with students being deemed “work-ready” when they develop discursive identities as engineers. Data generation took place by means of focus group and individual interviews, ethnographic observation and documentary research. Margaret Archer’s social realist tools – in particular, analytical dualism and the morphogenetic framework were used to trace the students’ transformations over the course pairing. It was argued that those students who developed discursive identities of engineers were those who, in Archer’s terms, emerged as social actors at the end of the course pairing. Two characteristics of the courses were found to enable this transformation: those parts that promoted deepened understanding of what the role of “engineer” entailed and the parts that provided spaces for students to develop their own personal identities. The findings of the study indicated that discursive identities as engineers were more likely to be developed through the group work and spaces for reflection engendered by the courses than as a result of the formal curriculum. The implications of the research are that, while a focus on employability in engineering education is valid and productive, this needs to be supported by opportunities for authentic learning experiences which afford students the opportunity to engage in learning that promotes real-life application of knowledge. , Thesis (PhD)--Rhodes University, Faculty of Education, Education, 2018
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018