A Professional Training Guide on Improving the Educational Quality in the Tertiary and Vocational Education Sectors of Developing Countries

Abstract

Sources highlight the structural issues of the tertiary, vocational and secondary education (TVSE) sectors in many developing countries due to poor cognitive abilities of academic resources in developing educational/training practices. This considerably influences the quality assurance procedures in curriculum development, teaching, learning, assessment, and other academic practices. Accordingly, this study intends to develop a new training guide/manual to let such academicians perform various educational/training practices/tasks. A comprehensive literature review was carried out through relevant scholarly academic articles, and a series of interviews, expert discussions and consultative workshops were conducted among 25 experts to collect relevant data. The data was analysed using thematic qualitative approaches to identify the crucial factors/areas and competency elements (CEs), and a set of expected competency outcomes (ECOs) were then developed through problem-based and action-oriented communication strategies. Expert reviews were conducted on the entire development process to validate the outputs. The study has produced a new training guide/manual, including 15 ECOs as the key elements. The study has also produced a sample lesson plan which describes how the learning areas/contents are methodically linked to the ECOs. The experts’ review outcomes substantiated the validity and reliability of the developed training guide. The proposed training guide can be an ideal tool for the TVSE sectors in enhancing the efficiency, productivity, and quality of their educational practices towards meeting the required standards of the industry/community-based outcomes. The study outcomes significantly contribute to controlling the deviations of many training programmes from the expectations of various industry/community sectors. This leads to reinforcing the existing policies of TVSE institutions and upgrading reskilling/upskilling strategies in a range of fields to find more effective remedies for ensuring sustainable practices in evolving situations. This paper discusses some more implications and future scopes elaboratively, which can be almost applicable/comparable to the contexts of developing countries.

KEYWORDS: competency enhancement, quality assurance, training development, vocational institutes, tertiary education, developing countries