Student and Staff Perception on the Growth and Administration of Parallel Degree Programmes in Kenya (Published)
The introduction of parallel degree programmes into public universities in Kenya initially triggered off stiff resistance from regular students as well as education experts who argued that quality would be sacrificed in pursuit of additional funds by the universities to address their deficit. Public universities shifted from the public-good paradigm to a market model in which generation of funds for the survival of the institution takes center stage. This paper examines the growth of Privately Sponsored Student Programmes (PSSP) in Kenya and the perception of staff and students on its management by the institutions. The descriptive study adopted ex-post facto research design. A sample of 460 privately sponsored students from all schools and campuses of Moi University and 140 teaching and non-teaching staff was used. Stratified random sampling procedure was used to identify the schools and the students while purposive sampling was used on the staff. Data was collected using questionnaires for students and staff while interview guides were used on administrators of schools and satellite campuses. The PSSP students at Moi University feel the University is not providing the quality education they had hoped to get. The staff has a more positive attitude towards PSSP and asserts that they are willing to put in more effort to ensure that PSSP achieves its objectives. However, the students think that there is little chance of any of them getting first class honours degree because of inadequate teaching, shortage of supporting infrastructure and favouritism
Keywords: Growth, PSSP Administration, Parallel Programmes, Perception
Business Education Students’s Perception Of The Skill Needs For Successful Entrepreneurship In Nigeria (Published)
The paper examined the Business education students’ perception of skill needs for successful entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The population consisted of 6002 business education students. 600 respondents were selected through stratified sampling technique. The study adopted survey design. A four point response item structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Out of the 600 copies distributed, 589 were collected and used for the study. The instrument was face- validated by three experts in the Departments of Business Education and science education of Ebonyi State University. An internal consistency of 0.98 was obtained using Cronbach Alpha correlation coefficient. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t –test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that business education students need technical and financial management skills to function well in this time of economic meltdown in Nigeria. It was concluded that there was need to put in place learning facilities that will help the business education students to acquire the skills. It was recommended that the institutions training Business Education students for entrepreneurship should have well equipped entrepreneurial development centre.
Keywords: Business Education, Entrepreneurship, Perception, Skill
CREATING SAFETY CULTURES AMONG UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATORS; A CASE STUDY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, WINNEBA, GHANA. (Review Completed - Accepted)
Safety culture is shared and accepted attitudes, beliefs and practices supported by documented policies and procedures in an organization which influences employees’ perceptions and behaviors within a workplace. Analysis of safety culture is important in institutions in order to identify potential areas of improvement. The objective of this study was to evaluate safety culture amongst administrators in UEW. Fifty respondents comprising 10 senior members, 10 senior staff and 30 junior staff participated in this study. Data was collected through self administered questionnaires. The results recorded low perceptions and awareness levels, lack of adequate safety training and non existence of safety reward schemes amongst the administrative group. Based on these results the study recommends an improvement in employees’ safety perception and satisfaction leading to an enhancement of safety culture.
Keywords: Perception, Safety Culture, Safety Measures, Safety Training, Universities
Is Teaching Practice for Grading or Improvement? Examining Student teachers’ Perception and Experience at the University of Dar es salaam, Tanzania (Review Completed - Accepted)
Teaching practice is the central activity in testing teaching skills gathered in classroom learning and in preparing professional teachers in any country. The current study investigated student teachers perception and experience on the teaching practice supervisor’s treatment, student supervisor pre or post classroom discussion and teaching practice processes in general. The data to inform the study were collected from 112 student teachers: 67 were males and 45 females and the tools used were questionnaires both structured and non-structured. Of these 52 were second years while 60 were third years. Majority of respondents about 95(84.8) were pre service and 17 (15.2%) were in-service. The findings revealed that student teachers had positive perception on teaching practice exercise, teaching practice supervisor’s treatment, and supervisor-student feedback provision style. It was also discovered that demographic variables such as: sex, year of study and professional background had a slight influence on student teachers perception on teaching practice exercise, supervisors treatment, and supervisor-student feedback styles. In line to that 42 (37.5%) student-teachers’ acknowledged the concept that teaching practice is for improvement and the remaining percentages were given to factors associated to opposite dimension. It was therefore concluded that, there is a need for strengthening the teaching practice supervision exercise and specifically the collaboration between university teaching practice office and the teaching practice-host institutions should be improved so as to minimize the challenges emanating from miscommunication during the teaching practice exercise
Keywords: : Teaching practice, Assessment, Feedback, Perception, Supervision