Effectiveness of B.ED Teachers Preparation Program Offered by Bahrain Teachers College (Published)
The teacher training program must be of paramount importance in order to establish a strong educational system that serves the objectives of the country’s educational policy. Bachelor of Education program (B.ED) in Bahrain Teachers College (BTC) at Bahrain University is specially designed to prepare an efficient teacher capable of implementing and achieving the educational objectives prepared by the Ministry of Education. This research aims to investigate the BTC graduates, senior teachers and school principals’ views of the B.ED program of BTC, and to what extent it prepared and trained BTC students to put theories into practice. Data was collected through a questionnaire. 183 participants took part in the study. The findings revealed that the program was effective in helping candidate teachers to acquire the necessary skills of instructional strategies, use of technology and effective communication. On the other hand, some of the participants responses demonstrated that some graduates are weak in content knowledge. Therefore, they suggest more training in the content knowledge for the specialization they have to teach.
Keywords: Competencies, Curriculum, Teaching, graduates
Graduate Employment Type In Relation To Areas of Specialisation: A Case Study of a Selected Higher Learning Institution in Botswana (Published)
The purpose of this paper was to determine whether graduates of a selected higher learning institution (HLI) in Botswana got jobs in their areas of specialisation. The issue of graduates who are not employed in their field of specialisation has gained prominence in national debates world over. The mismatch between graduate employment types in relation to graduates’ fields of specialisation has created a dichotomy which has generated growing interest for governments, ministries of education, regulatory authorities, institutions of higher learning, industry, students, and parents at large. With a bigger chunk of the national fiscus in Botswana going to funding education, the dichotomy has turned into an issue of national interest. The study employed the case study research design while the research approach was quantitative. Survey strategy was used for data collection. This study’s target population was all former full time students at the selected HLI in Botswana who graduated between 2007 and 2014. Since the study was a quantitative one, convenient sampling procedure was adopted. The sample size adopted for this study was 250. The study revealed that across gender, more graduates were employed in their fields of expertise when compared to those employed in fields they did not specialise in. Gender-wise, there were more female graduates employed in areas of expertise when compared to male graduates.
Keywords: Higher Education, Human Resource Development Council (HRDC), graduate employability, graduates
Graduate Employment Type In Relation To Areas of Specialization: A Case Study of a Selected Higher Learning Institution in Botswana (Published)
The purpose of this paper was to determine whether graduates of a selected higher learning institution (HLI) in Botswana got jobs in their areas o specialisation. The issue of graduates who are not employed in their field of specialization has gained prominence in national debates world over. The mismatch between graduate employment types in relation to graduates’ fields of specialization has created a dichotomy which has generated growing interest for governments, ministries of education, regulatory authorities, and institutions of higher learning, industry, students, and parents at large. With a bigger chunk of the national fiscus in Botswana going to funding education, the dichotomy has turned into an issue of national interest. The study employed the case study research design while the research approach was quantitative. Survey strategy was used for data collection. This study’s target population was all former full time students at the selected HLI in Botswana who graduated between 2007 and 2014. Since the study was a quantitative one, convenient sampling procedure was adopted. The sample size adopted for this study was 250. The study revealed that across gender, more graduates were employed in their fields of expertise when compared to those employed in fields they did not specialize in. Gender-wise, there were more female graduates employed in areas of expertise when compared to male graduates.
Keywords: Higher Education, Human Resource Development Council (HRDC), graduate employability, graduates