FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS - The Prospects and Challenges of Integrating Information Communicatio

As rightly stated above, this chapter has featured findings and discussions. The study attempts to find out possible opportunities and challenges for integrating ICT into the Gambia’s TVET sector by looking at four aspects of integration: Organizational Readiness, Strategy Readiness, Pedagogical and Technical Readiness. The participating institutions were divided into three groups - the government institutions in charge of TVET issues, TVET institutions both public and private, and the service providers. As such, the findings from the research are introduced based on institutional group. And findings from each institutional group are introduced in accordance with the four themes.

From the following presentation, the participants from all the institutions have raised some concerns about the integration of ICT into the Gambia’s TVET sector most notably, technical and financial (organization) challenges. In the same vein, opportunities are also highlighted especially the availability of trainable human resource and enough BROADBAND capacity to provide extra internet services.

The discussions have tried to identify several critical issues from the findings which are necessary for the successful integration of ICT. All the four aspects of the study such as organizational, strategy, pedagogical and technical readiness were discussed in detail.

Findings on Readiness of Government Institutions

The findings regarding readiness of Government institutions are divided based on the four aspects of the study; each of these aspects is further divided into opportunities and challenges in accordance with the model adopted by the study.

Great

Figure 4.1. Findings on organizational readiness of government institutions.

Organizational Readiness of Government Institutions Opportunities Challenges: No Main Sponsor for TVET

Opportunities

Although not without challenges precisely financial, the research found some crucial organizational opportunities to the successful integration of ICT into TVET sector of any country such as supportive mission and vision, great leadership concern, favorable organizational structures, as well as easily trainable human resource (Slevin & Pinto, 1987).

Supportive Vision and Mission

As Mission and Vision are said to be the core value or the moral principal of the organization which guide its operations as highlighted by literature, this research studied the missions and visions of respective concern institutions since no organization will venture into an undertaking that contradicts its mission and vision.

Relevant vocational education and practical skills.

Despite the blowing wind of change around the globe, every great organization should understand the difference between what is changeable and what is unchangeable.

Vision of an organization provides guidance as to what core to preserve and what future to stimulate progress toward. Every well stated vision must consist of two major parts: core ideology and envisioned future. Core ideology, explains what the organization stands for and why it exists.

The core ideology of every organization is unchangeable and serves as a complement to the envisioned future. The envisioned future explains what an organization aspires to become, to attain, to create – something that will bring significant change and progress toward the attainment of the envisioned future. Therefore, it is better to know who you are (core ideology) than where you are going (envisioned future); because where you are heading to will undoubtedly change as the world around you changes. Leaderships are being changing, well marketable products are being obsoleted, new technologies are being emerged, senior managements are being changed; but one thing that remains unchanged is the organization’s core ideology, which every great company endures as a source of guidance and inspiration. Core ideology gives the glue that binds organization together as it grows, decentralizes, diversifies, expands globally, and develops workplace diversity (Collins & Porras, 1996).

Conversely, Mission is an organization’s character, identity and reason for existence. It can be divided into four inter-relating parts: purpose, strategy, behavior standards and values. Purpose addresses why an organization is in being: for whose benefit is all this effort being put in? Strategy considers the nature of the business, the desired positioning versus other companies and the source

of competitive advantage. Behavior standards are the norms and values of the way we do things around here. Values are the beliefs and moral principles that lie behind the behavior standards, beliefs that have normally been formulated within the organization by a founding dynasty or a dominant management team. Mission provides rational for action. It links behavior standards to purpose in two ways: the strategy link explains that certain behavior will help make the organization successful; the value link explains that certain behavior is normally upright the right way to behave (Campbell, 1991).

However, most of the respondents from the institutions under studied have alluded to the fact that the visions and missions of their individual institutions are being very supportive to ICT integration into the tertiary education of the Gambia. Many of the participants described ICT as the “Core mandate” of their vision and mission.

The vision of the ministry is to provide, a tertiary and high education system that will address the skill and competence needs of the country, and to contribute to the transformation of the country into a middle level well known international business and skill based economy; with ICT, we will be able to produce well educated and skillful persons who will meet the required competence to be able to compete nationally and globally. In order to provide relevant vocational education and practical skills, the ministry pursues this vision by (R1):

 Increasing access to tertiary and higher education by creating conducive learning environment with appropriate and adequate facilities.

 Improving the quality efficiency and relevance of tertiary and higher education by equipping learners with desired values, attitudes, knowledge, skills and competencies, particularly in Technical and Vocational Education TVET, Sciences, Research, Innovation and entrepreneurs that respond to the labor market needs of the country.

 Providing a gender responsive and equitable Tertiary and Higher Education system (R1).

Regulation of vocational education.

According to NTA Act (2002) Part II, number 13 a and c respectively, the Authority has been mandated to regulate vocational education by “encouraging market driven approach to the development of technical and vocational education and training” and also to harmonize and

streamline all professional, technical, and vocational programmes to reflect human resource development needs. Both of these are in line with the use of ICT in technical education. For example, in this modern time, it would be difficult if not impossible to “encourage market driven approach to the development of technical and vocational education and training” in the absence of ICT.

Great Leadership Concern

Regarding leadership support, the participants revealed that the leaderships of the respective government institutions are quite supportive to the use of ICT into the tertiary education in general most especially into the TVET sector because they are cognizant of the fact that we live in a world of technology. Top management support is very crucial to the successful implementation of any project which has been described as one of the project critical success factors (Slevin &

Pinto, 1987).

Provision of moral and financial support.

According to the participants, Ministry of Higher Education, Research Science and Technology which NTA is affiliated to, with the help of the current management, two policies are being drafted and ICT is prioritized in both documents. All the participants have highly rated leadership support for the facilitation of drafting those policies as highlighted below in their own words:

In fact using ICT in higher and vocational education is what we are trying to address. We currently have two policies to that effect which are still in draft form, expected to be validated soon. We have already started the use of ICT to manage data and its utilization. And Directorate of Science and Technology will soon kick start this project (R1).

The leadership support is forthcoming, because efforts are ongoing to build the basic infrastructure which will boil down to the TVET institutions by building a database that will be controlled by the ministry (R3).

ICT mediated learning, a concern for leadership.

Furthermore, respondents from the Authority which is the main target for the study have also reiterated the amount of support given by the leadership to ensuring that ICT mediated learning is use in the TVET system and they shared their experiences as stated below:

Our leadership is very supportive to the use of ICT in TVET sector because they realize that we are in technology age. They provide financial and moral supports and also committed good part of their time in order to ensure that ICT is use in the TVET sector. Due to their support, we are able to create a database which could be very helpful when it comes to integration of ICT into TVET sector.

Easily Trainable Human Resource

Although some NTA personnel may need further training in order to upgrade their academic level if the standards are to be observed, but the overall Human Resource standard within the two institutions is encouraging.

Staff with relevant experience.

According to the findings from the study, most of the participants possessed good experience in their individual job positions. Although quit a few of the participants at the time of data collection were recently promoted to their job positions and some were even acting; despite, most of them have been in their job positions for number of years. Below are some of their job experiences in their respective job positions: R5: “I have been in this job position for 7 years”, R1:

“I have been holding this position for 3 years which is only limited to this particular job not my entire work experience for the department”. Experience or staff commitment to stay is very fundamental for the successful implementation of this project; because many proponents of human resource management place great emphasis on developing and maintaining a workforce highly committed to the organisation (Arnold & Davey, 1999).

Fairly educated staff.

Sutherland (1997) has argued for a better comprehension of the unique and distinctive contribution of higher education to the success of training. As such, most of the participants and other staff of the concern institutions have possessed higher education which will surely enhance the staff training for the integration of ICT as stated by R2: “we have the capacity in terms of Human resource with required knowledge to ensure successful ICT integration”. As indicated by the findings, out of six participants, three of them possessed Master’s Degree in their respective areas of responsibility; two of them have Bachelor Degree. Only one of the interviewees possessed National Higher Diploma.

Favorable Organizational Structures

Organizational structure in this study refers the organizational lay out of the participating institutions which has been studied to determine if necessary hierarchy and technical departments are established.

Essential technical departments.

Both of the institutions have in place standard organizational structures. For example, the Authority has within its organizational set up “technical unit” and the ministry has “Science Technology Innovation (STI) directorate” all of which are within a hierarchical organizational set up.

Necessary organizational set up.

Integrating ICT into TVET system requires a larger degree of organizational readiness in different aspects. The two institutions responsible of TVET issues have both established necessary hierarchical organizational set up, thus facilitating hierarchical administrative decision making, with specific tasks assigned at each level of the organization’s structure:

Minister, Permanent Secretary (PS) the technical advisor, Deputy Permanent Secretary (DPS), Admin and Finance (Principal Assistant Secretary, Senior Assistance Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Assistant Record Officer, Record Clerks, Accounts, Senior Accountant, Accounts Clerks, Principal Private,) Senior Private Secretary, Typist/data Entry Clerks, Auxiliary Staff Drivers, Messengers and Cleaners). Deputy Permanent Secretary Programs (technical); three Directorates: Directorate of Tertiary and Higher Education, Directorate of Planning and Research, Directorate of Science Technology and Innovations each of these directorates is headed by a Director, Next Principal Officer in each Directorate, Senior Officers and Officers (R1).

With this structure, we can coordinate any project within our purview especially ICT in TVET;

because the structure has directorate of science and technology which coordinates issues in science and technology including science and technology in TVET and other Higher Education related areas. And we also have Higher Education Directorate which NTA is answerable to as it is responsible of TVET issues (R3).

Furthermore, NTA also has a similar advantageously structured organizational set up for coordinating any official project as described below:

First of all, NTA is a sort of private sector organization. The Authority has a board, chair of which comes from the Private sector although government is as well represented. Then you have Director General.

Policy Planning Unit

 Admin and Finance (units on their own) these two units are to be integrated into one unit to be headed by Director Finance and Administration.

 Technical Department Headed by Director of Quality Assurance

 Standard Development Unit under the Technical Department Headed by a Specialist

 Curriculum Development Unit Headed by Specialist

 Assessment and Certification Unit

 Registration and Accreditation Unit (responsible for issuing license to trainers, enforcement of quality assurance in TVET system, regulating training institutions, registration of institutions, ensuring that training institutions comply especially at the time of TVET reform.

 Labor Market Information System Headed by Specialist (R4).

Additionally, the cohesive working procedures among the various units within the Authority especially when embarking on a new initiative which R4 described below is an added advantage:

The current structure of the Authority can implement this project. Because our Labor Market Information System (LMIS) headed by a specialist - primary function include going out to gather information about current practices in TVET and conduct research on the skill needs of the Gambia and Gambians. This information gathered by LMIS will be processed i.e. analyzed and decision will be taken based on scale of preference. After the analysis, it will be forwarded to the standard development unit, who will invite the few experts from the industries to form a panel, and present to them the standard they developed out of the information gathered by LMIS which is usually based on the skill needs of Gambia and

Gambians though international standard benchmarked. This newly developed standard will then be validated by the board of directors. After which, the curriculum development unit will also invite experts to transform this standard into a teaching curriculum. Furthermore, the developed curriculum will be forwarded to assessment and certification unit where it would be sold to the TVET institutions in order to make it accessible to the Gambians. So looking at this structure and the way we work together as a team I have no doubt that the current structure in place can integrate ICT in the TVET sector. The most encouraging thing is we already have database in place (R4).

The above explanation shows the cohesiveness of different NTA departments or units when it comes to working together as one family pursuing a common goal. That the amount of cohesiveness among work units to a very a large extent related to the general amount of Organizational Citizenship Behavior shown by work group members (Mossholder & Bennett, 1997). R4’s points were further elaborated by R6, “the structure in place is very viable for implementing any project within the TVET sector especially ICT which is one of the priorities of the Authority”.

Challenges: No Main Sponsor for TVET

Some of the respondents pointed out few partners that in the past provided support to coordinate TVET issues in the Gambia. These partners include: Taiwan International Cooperation Development Fund (ICDF), United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, and World Bank. Despite, finance remains a challenge.

No Specific Budgetary Allocation for TVET

The Gambia government has also been providing financial support to some public TVET institutions and MoHERST also receives annual budgetary allocation from central government, but how much is received and how much of it is allocated to TVET at the Ministry level remains unclear. For example, “we receive budget but no idea about the percentage allocated to TVET”

(R1). However, none of the institutions have established reliable partnership with any of the sponsors to ensure sustainable financial assistance. National Training Authority which is the institution directly responsible of TVET issues entirely remains dependent on “industry levy”

which could limit its innovations and interventions.

NTA Depends On Industry Levy Only

Based on the data gathered so far, running the day to day affairs of the Authority depends to a very large extent if not entirely on “levy”. It is true that this is in line with how most of the NTAs especially in Africa operate. For example, South Africa has a sectorally-organised levy-grant system but blended it with national strategic fund.

However, levy may be enough for the administrative functions of the Authority but it would be difficult if not impossible for capital intensive projects of this nature be executed without sponsorship since the nature of the project is very financially demanding as it includes infrastructure, training at different levels, administrative cost etc. As indicated by R2, “it would be very difficult for NTA to execute this project and for TVET institutions to embrace it without sponsorship”. These points were further reiterated by R5:

NTA is financed by the national education levy paid by the private sector. For sponsorship, no; apart from support we got from Gamjobs which expired last year (2012). And for ICDF, the sponsorship we had from them is meant for Ndemban Skill Training Centre which came directly to NTA as executing body; unless with such sponsorship, this project cannot be implemented (R5).

This clearly shows need for the Authority to build relationship with sponsoring institutions that has similar goals with the NTA. Building industrial relationships are viewed as strategic alliances which is defined as, “Relatively enduring interfirm cooperative arrangement, involving flows and linkages that use resources and/or governance structures from autonomous organizations, for the joint accomplishment of individual goals linked to the corporate mission of each sponsoring firm” (Nielson, 1998, p. 2).

Figure 4.2. Findings on strategic readiness of government institutions.

Opportunities: Policies on the use of ICT in TVET

Assessment of readiness in general term, allows an organization to further tailor efforts to make change success more likely(Armenakis & Harris, 2002). Since strategy readiness is the stage at which organization is expected to have established a broad master plan for any undertaking, the researcher tried to investigate plans and the contents of the plans or strategies if any established by the two institutions. Both institutions were found to have established policies on ICT as indicated by the findings which is believe to be a step in the right direction.

Written Policies on ICT

MoHERST has attained a degree of strategic readiness compare to NTA even though a lot more remains unattended in both institutions. Several participants from cross sections in both institutions made mentioned of availability of written policies all of which outlined and prioritized the usage of ICT in higher education in general. Ministry of Higher Education Research Science and Technology has put in place two main policies one of which is Science Technology Innovation (STI) policy, which during the time of the data collection was at the draft stage waiting to be validated. The said policy outlines in detail about the possible use of ICT in higher education in

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