Challenges of the internal efficiency of science and technology education training programs in the tvet institutions in Nyanza region, Kenya

Abstract

Globally technical training institutions have been established to promote quality academic and technical-oriented programs. This study was motivated by persistent low enrolment in most TVET programs despite reforms being undertaken by the government to support TVET. The purpose of the study was to analyze the challenges facing leaner’s demand for the science and technology courses in Nyanza Region. The results show that the average teaching workload in the TVET institutions is high at 24 hours per week against the recommended 15hour per week and this has compromised the quality and internal efficiency. The highest teacher/ student ratio was 1:50. This indicated that teachers were overburdened in most cases. In terms of dropout rate; 187 (52.8%) students consider the inability to pay college fees and low entry behavior as the most common challenge causing students to drop out of their training programs in the TVET institutions; more than three-quarters of the training programs have shown moderate average pass-rate and above for the last seven years (2010 to 2016) under study, the highest average pass-rate of 69.0876% was attained by the Institutional Management; with Building and Civil Engineering with an average pass-rate of 54.9487%, Automotive Engineering with an average pass-rate of 42.0523%, Electrical and Electronics Engineering with an average pass-rate of 41.2465% and Mechanical Engineering with the lowest average pass-rate of 33.9714%. Factors affecting academic performance included inadequate teaching staff, inadequate training facilities; low entry behavior. Strategies to improve internal efficiency included hiring more staff and the use of HELB to finance education programmes. The study concluded that there exists inefficiency in the TVET sector and recommends that the government should provide additional resources to the TVET sector.