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CURRICULUM
IMPLEMENTATION AND THE EMPLOYABILITY OF EDUCATION GRADUATES
ABSTRACT
The major
purpose of this study is to determine the influence of curriculum
implementation on the employability of the Education Graduates of the
University of Lagos. Three research question was raised to guide the study and
one research hypothesis was formulated. The descriptive survey research design
was adopted for this study. The population of the study comprised of students
from the Department of Educational Administration of the University of Lagos,
the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members from Surulere, Lagos and
teachers drawn from various private schools in Ikeja Local Government Area of
Lagos State. The systematic random sampling technique was used in selecting 150
respondents from the population. The method of data collection was the
questionnaire, the researcher administered the instrument, data was analyzed
using the Mean, Standard Deviation, and t-test analysis. One of the major
findings was that employability skills as part of the curriculum makes the
difference in graduate unemployment. A major recommendation include that
curriculum must be reviewed periodically and drawn in tandem with the
requirements of employers of labour in order to match current realities.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background
to the Study
Higher
education institutions must recognise that for many students, the transition
from education into employment is not a straightforward matter and in the past
many students have been ill-equipped for this transition. During the 1990s,
this issue has been exacerbated because of the considerable expansion in
graduate numbers which has taken place within a relatively short period of
time. Furthermore, the nature of graduate employment is changing, today it is
only a minority of students who can hold any realistic expectation of
employment in a position directly related to the discipline studied; this is
particularly the case for those students whose focus remains within traditional
academic disciplines. Whilst it is essential that the academic standards of
particular disciplines or broader fields of study are not undermined, it is
also important to be realistic and to note that the academic knowledge gained
will (for most students) never be utilised directly in any employment context.
More and more, the academic qualification of the degree is merely a statement
that the graduate has demonstrated the ability to perform to a particular level
of academic competence and, perhaps more importantly, possesses the ability to
learn (Steven and Fallows, 1998).
Employers,
universities and professional bodies agree that Nigeria needs to develop
professionals who are highly skilled and ready to face the challenges of
increased competition. More than ever, we need professionals who are responsive
to economic, social, cultural, technical and environmental change and can work
flexibly and intelligently across business contexts. The country requires
education graduates who understand the part they play in the impartation of
knowledge to pupils and have the practical skills to work effectively in their
roles.
However,
contributing in the school environment means more than having the necessary
teaching skills. It means engaging with the school and its goals, understanding
the dynamics of the school environment and taking up a job role with an
informed knowledge of all of its requirements. It also means applying a broad
range of employability skills learned in many contexts and through a range of
experiences. Emerging institutions aspire to be more competitive, more
effective and more innovative. The education graduate workforce is a key part
of the talent pool the school environment draws from to further these
objectives. Universities clearly want to produce graduates with the skills that
are highly regarded by employers and are seen to contribute to the acquisition
of lifelong skills by the students, country’s prosperity and social capital.
Emerging teaching professionals want to attain interesting employment, and
build their professional careers.
National
development is inextricably linked to human development. All education graduates of institutions of
higher learning play a major role in the development of their countries and in
the advancement of their respective disciplines. While technical discipline-specific knowledge
is a prerequisite for all graduates, effective management skills are also
needed by those entering the private sector and government. However, the challenge is that curriculum
design and implementation require a major overhaul for graduates to acquire
these competencies and skills. Our curriculum in most higher institutes of
learning does not have an extensive curriculum reform to include mentoring and
internships as part of the regular training in all educational programmes.
Educational providers globally are increasingly expected to focus on improving
the employability of their learners.
This has led to greater attention on a range of institutional policies
and practices that focus on the individual's learning and which seek to address
their deficits of knowledge, skills and attitudes.
Statement of
the Problem
Nigeria has
a serious challenge. Many education graduates of its universities cannot find
work. Despite an average economic growth rate of about seven percent per annum
over the last seven years, a good performance by global standards, wage
employment is estimated to have declined by about thirty percent according to a
recent World Bank Publication titled “Putting Nigeria to Work”. Nigeria has a
serious jobless growth problem. Its strong economic performance over the last
decade has not translated to jobs and real life opportunities for its many of
its youths. (Olu Akanmu, 2011).
Three out of
ten graduates of higher institutions cannot find work. Being highly educated
does not increase the chance of finding a job. Many graduates of higher
institution who find work are not usually gainfully employed. They are forced
to accept marginal jobs that do not use their qualifications in sales,
agriculture and manual labour according to the British Council sponsored
Nigeria-Next Generation Report. For those who are lucky to find jobs, employers
are concerned about their skills and fit with their job requirements. Standards
have fallen in higher education due to years of poor implementation of the
curriculum, leading to a growing preference for overseas university education.
Nigeria is one of the biggest markets for British Higher Education because many
upper- middle class families see it as a way to give their children a
head-start in life. This however has serious social equity implications as not
more than ten percent of Nigerian families can afford to send their children
abroad. There is an increasing correlation between employability of graduates
and their social class. If education is the bridge to liberating the potentials
of young people and bridging the social divide by offering everyone a chance to
climb the social ladder, higher education in Nigeria may be failing.
Employers
want their graduate recruits to be competent in their chosen fields. They also
want them to come out of school well equipped with complementary life skills
such as problem solving, reflective and critical thinking, interpersonal and
teaming skills, effective communication, character, integrity and high level of
personal ethics, self-esteem, self-discipline, organizing skills and abilities to
translate ideas to action. The problem, typical of higher education in many
countries is that these life skills are rarely taught as part of higher
education curriculum. Yet, as soft as they are, they are no less important in
making a success out of school as the specific technical skills in a graduate’s
chosen field.
According to
Olu Akanmu (2011), there are two critical policy issues to address in putting
the Nigerian graduate to work. The first is how to increase the employment
generation capacity of the economy, create jobs that will absorb thousands of
higher education graduates and reverse the current pattern of Nigeria’s jobless
economic growth. It is estimated that Nigeria needs to create twenty-four
million jobs over the next ten years to half current unemployment level of
thirty percent. The second policy issue to address is how higher education
institutions will produce graduates that are employable for the jobs created.
How would Nigerian universities improve standards to produce graduates with the
minimum sufficient technical skills in their chosen fields? Her national spending priorities will need to
be re-ordered to allocate more resources to human capacity development which
has a high leverage on its social and economic development. In addition,
Nigeria’s education policy must also address how its universities will develop
the complementary curriculum that addresses the life skill requirements its
graduates and prepare them better for their post-graduate life journey? The
disparity between postgraduate employment reality and higher education
curriculum in specific field and general terms will need to be addressed.
The
historical underfunding of curriculum implementation has led to a crisis of
standards in higher education. Putting
the education graduate to gainful work also implies that its higher education
institutions should partner with schools to develop employability content in
higher education curriculum and provide formal life skills training for
students. The curriculum does not include life case analysis in teaching that
brings the real work problems to life.
Purpose/Objectives
of the Study
The purpose
of the study is to:
1. analyse the impact of curriculum
implementation on life learning skills acquired by Faculty of Education
graduates in the University of Lagos.
2. identify how the Faculty of Education
currently integrates, develops and teaches employability skills to
undergraduates through its curriculum.
3. identifying practical, cost-effective
options that enable employability to be identified as part of the Faculty of
Education curriculum.
The study
will also shed more light on the employability skills needed by education
graduates to fully succeed in the teaching environment.
Research
Questions
To guide the
study, the following research questions were posed,
1. Does curriculum implementation directly
affect the employability of education graduates in the University of Lagos?
2. Is the University of Lagos currently
teaching life learning skills and competencies in their Education Faculty?
3. How effective are the vocational and
technical training for new education graduates towards being employable?
Research
Hypothesis
There is
significant difference between the teaching abilities of education graduates
that have been exposed to teaching practice as part of the curriculum and
Non-education graduates who have not been part of any teaching practice scheme
as part of their curriculum.
Scope of the
Study
The scope of
the study will involve
1. defining curriculum implementation in the
Faculty of Education of the University of Lagos, the methods and effectiveness.
2. reviewing and identifying the best
practice for integrating, developing, teaching, assessing on employability
skills.
3. identifying practical, cost-effective
options that enable employability skills that are embedded in university
education qualifications to be explicitly identified as part of the higher
education assessment and reporting process.
4. examining the factors that affect
qualitative implementation of curriculum in the Faculty of Education of the
University of Lagos.
It should be
noted that the study focuses only on curriculum implementation in the Faculty
of Education, UNILAG and the employability of its new graduates.
Significance
of the Study
The findings
of this research will be of great importance to all the stakeholders among
which are:
1. Curriculum Designers – The findings will
better inform the curriculum designers and implementers on why the curriculum
should be reviewed frequently. It will also guide them on how to plan for the
education graduates and equally put in motion processes geared towards
repositioning the curriculum to more responsive to the needs of the society.
2. Researchers – The study will provide a
framework for subsequent studies in this area and it will serve as reference
work for researchers who intend to carry out similar studies.
3. Students – The study will serve as an eye
opener to the education graduates who are not informed about the skills they
are supposed to possess.
4. Employers – The findings of this work
will be of immense help to employers of labour as it will afford them the
opportunity to know the areas of weaknesses of our graduates and how to
possibly organise on the job training for new recruits to address this
challenge.
Limitations
of the Study
The study
will not be concerned with the employability of existing Education graduates in
the labour market but will be focussing on new graduates. The study will only
concern itself with the design and implementation of curriculum at the Faculty
of Education, Department of Educational Foundation; it will not be examining
curriculum implementation in other Faculties in the University.
Operational
Definitions of Important Terms
Curriculum:
is a plan or programme of all experiences which the learner encounters under
the direction of a school (Tanner and Tanner, 1995: 158). Curriculum in this
study refers to the programme of activities run by the school to prepare their
product for the labour market. According to Gatawa (1990), it is “the totality
of the experiences of children for which schools are responsible”. All this is
in agreement with Sergiovanni and Starrat (1983), who argue that curriculum is
“that which a student is supposed to encounter, study, practice and master…
what the student learns. A curriculum outlines a prescribed series of courses
to take.
Employability:
A set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes that
make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen
occupations. Booth, (2003). It is that quality that enables a worker fit into
the world of work.
Curriculum
Implementation: Curriculum implementation entails putting into practice the
officially prescribed courses of study, syllabuses and subjects. The process
involves helping the learner acquire knowledge or experience. It is important
to note that curriculum implementation cannot take place without the learner.
The learner is therefore the central figure in the curriculum implementation
process. Implementation takes place as the learner acquires the planned or
intended experiences, knowledge, skills, ideas and attitudes that are aimed at
enabling the same learner to function effectively in a society (University of
Zimbabwe, 1995).
Curriculum
implementation is how the school is able to meet the requirements on the policy
of education at the higher level.
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