Professor Noel Kufaine (PhD) is a higher education expert with interdisciplinary education knowledge and understanding in higher education, technical education, teacher education, and research. His interest is inclusive and purposeful education system, designed to respond to current challenges without compromising future opportunities. He believes that the quality of education is in a well-trained teacher. He has research, consultancy and teaching experience having worked with different organisations. He has one book, one book chapter; 10 journal publications; 14 conferences proceeding presentations, and successfully supervised postgraduate students.
Effective Teaching in TVET: An Analysis of Technical Teacher Training in Namibia
Since the establishment of Vocational Instructor training programmes in Namibia; there has been an effort to achieve TVET reform whose emphasis has been to improve TVET training system through continuous professional development. Conversely, TVET training system in Namibia is faulted of producing artisans of lower quality and there is a mismatch between knowledge and skills in training institutions and industry needs. The dichotomy of establishing continuous professional development programmes for TVET teachers and failure to respond to industry needs calls for indulgence.
The aim of this paper is to present an attempt undertaken to understand technical teacher reform in Namibia and share Namibias’ technical teacher training efforts and experience as a means of providing qualified technical teachers. The study used an interpretive and descriptive approach. Qualitative data was generated through document analysis. Data analysis was attained guided by thematic analysis coupled with qualitative analysis. The study looked at the problem technical teacher training programme is responding, provide an explanation of the unit organisation and implementation. The results show that technical teacher training is usually forgotten when conceptualizing TVET training. Hence it comes as an afterthought, hence TVET teacher training is limited in providing the purpose and has no policy direction.
The TVET teacher training uses a consecutive approach where a qualified artisan is eventually taught teaching methods, however, mostly the programs have general teaching methods approaches rather than content-specific pedagogy course, however, the teaching approach is not content-specific. The search revealed that the technical teacher training model that allows teaching pedagogy content and specific occupational content to be taught at the same time suffocates each other; however, the content preparation before pedagogy is not taught for teaching but working in the workshop. In conclusion, reform in the TVET sector is inevitable, quality instruction is fundamental, therefore, this study recommends that there is a need for the TVET sector to include TVET teacher training during conceptualisation.
To benefit from strategic efforts in improving technical teacher education and for the benefit of the TVET training industry, there is a need to classify training programs to; TVET trainers, TVET instructors, and TVET teachers. To prioritize technical teacher training providers and demonstrate a commitment to the advancement of the TVET sector; TVET sector should have TVET training policy which should describe the attributes of a TVET teacher training and characteristics of TVET instructors. TVET training providers require empowerment with resources by bringing the industry technology into an institution.
Paper Authors:
- Noel Kufaine- Namibia University of Science and Technology, P/Bag 13388, Windhoek, Namibia. Email: nkufaine@nust.na.
- Lance Hauanga- Namibia University of Science and Technology, P/Bag 13388, Windhoek, Namibia. Email:lhauuanga@nust.na
- Rejoice Quest- Namibia University of Science and Technology, P/Bag 13388, Windhoek, Namibia. Email:equest@nust.na