The Prospects and Challenges of Integrating Information Communication Technology into the Technical and Vocational Education and Training System of the Gambia

Abstract

The Gambia being a Least Developing Country (LDC) that aims at reaching the international set standards for development such as Millennium Developing Goals (MDGs) through different strategies one of which is human resource development; the country has put in place coherent strategies for human capital development through improved Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system, which are undoubtedly serving as a catalyst for national development. In spite of this commendable move, efforts are still needed to better shape the TVET system in accordance with international standards which could be done by integrating Information Communication Technology (ICT) the prospects and challenges of which this research examined. In this study, technology integration is thus viewed as the use of computing devices such as desktop computers, laptops, handheld computers, software, or internet in TVET system for instructional purposes. The main method of data inquiry for this study was qualitative research technique. Besides document review, semi-structured interviews were administered in MoHERST, NTA, TVET institutions, GAMTEL and Taiwan ICDF. Triangulation was used as the 20 participants were drawn from different levels based on information reached. Results showed that both government and TVET institutions were ready to an extent on all the four aspects of the study but, technical and financial challenges override all the other challenges. Interestingly, GAMTEL was found to have enough BROADBAND capacity and Taiwan ICDF was also found ready to the teeth to handle most of the challenges identified.The Gambia being a Least Developing Country (LDC) that aims at reaching the international set standards for development such as Millennium Developing Goals (MDGs) through different strategies one of which is human resource development; the country has put in place coherent strategies for human capital development through improved Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system, which are undoubtedly serving as a catalyst for national development. In spite of this commendable move, efforts are still needed to better shape the TVET system in accordance with international standards which could be done by integrating Information Communication Technology (ICT) the prospects and challenges of which this research examined. In this study, technology integration is thus viewed as the use of computing devices such as desktop computers, laptops, handheld computers, software, or internet in TVET system for instructional purposes. The main method of data inquiry for this study was qualitative research technique. Besides document review, semi-structured interviews were administered in MoHERST, NTA, TVET institutions, GAMTEL and Taiwan ICDF. Triangulation was used as the 20 participants were drawn from different levels based on information reached. Results showed that both government and TVET institutions were ready to an extent on all the four aspects of the study but, technical and financial challenges override all the other challenges. Interestingly, GAMTEL was found to have enough BROADBAND capacity and Taiwan ICDF was also found ready to the teeth to handle most of the challenges identified.