TVET Curriculum Mapping and Its Responsiveness to the Labour Market Demand the Case of the Building Construction Fields in Ethiopia

Abstract

The primary aim of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is to prepare for the country labour force meeting needs of the labour market, to enable people contribute to sustainable social, economic, environment and industrial development. Ethiopia has implemented the outcome-based Technical and Vocational Education and Training system since 2007. The Ethiopian outcome-based TVET system is a training delivery approach in which the labour market demand is identified and Occupational Standards (OS) are developed by industry and then the curriculum is developed based on the OS developed. Both the Ethiopian occupational standard (EOS) and the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) curriculum derived from the OS have similar architectural structural mapping. The main objective of this article was to assess how the TVET curriculum mapping in the case of the building construction fields in Ethiopia responds to labour market demand. The main data gathering instruments used in the study were interviews and document analysis. The interviews were held with the TVET stakeholders such as the Federal and Regional TVET curriculum development officials, the TVET college principals, the HoDs and TVET trainers. The documents that were reviewed included the Ethiopian National TVET Strategy and other TVET working documents such as the Ethiopian Occupational Standard and the TVET Curriculum Development manuals as well as other literature related to the study. It is found out that the curricula of building construction fields are the direct and one-to-one conversion of their respective Occupational Standards. The findings again revealed that the general TVET curriculum mapping of the building construction fields have not addressed the country’s labour market demand and training needs. As a result of this, it was noted that the participants were not comfortable with the curriculum mapping of building construction fields laid by the Ethiopian TVET Authority. The paper concludes that the TVET curriculum should not necessarily have been the direct mirror and reflection of its OS when curriculum mapping was designed as it does not reflect the real societal and training needs of students.