The impact of industrial practical attachment in vocational education, a case study of Tamale vocational institute and St. Mary’s vocational institute in Tamale

Abstract

In today’s world of stiff skill competition in the labor market, coupled with advanced technology, industries require students to have experience before employing them. The challenge here is that, the experience being required is not taught in the class rooms or lecture rooms. The reality is that, it is only gained through hands on the job, thus real world confrontation popularly called industrial attachment a platform for students to arm themselves with all the skills, and demanded. Hence the SIPP for dressmaking (Fashion) students had been virtually inactive partially due to the poor organization, supervision, insufficient time allocation and inadequate placement opportunities resulting in poor performance of the student at the world of work. There was thus, the need to verify how well the programme was organized and its impact on the beneficiaries in Ghana. The Research design used was survey. The study used both questionnaires and interviews to collect the data. In all, a total of 100 questionnaires were administrated and all the 100 were returned. The population comprised of current students, employers of Fashion industries, homes and liaisons officers. Figures, tables and texts were employed to present the data. The most significant results were that students and schools constitute the main financiers of the programme and placement was still a difficult task. Most reported benefiting very much from the programmes. All the respondents reported the programme to be very important. All the key informants (100%) preferred engaging students with industrial practical experience. Though most students were satisfied with the programme, pragmatic steps should be taken to improve it.