The document presents the findings of a feasibility study on developing an educational program to enhance employability of upper basic school leavers in four West African countries. Key findings include: 1. There are discrepancies between the current curriculum and social demands for employability skills, including inadequate vocational content, lack of resources, and a focus on examinations over competency development. 2. Employability is understood as the ability to earn a living through self-employment or employment. In-demand skills include literacy, numeracy, basic vocational skills, and soft skills. 3. Recommendations include integrating employability into the curriculum through career guidance, practical application, teacher training, industry partnerships, and equipping

1. The Gambia
Report
A Feasibility Study
for Delivering an
Innovative
Educational
Programme for
Enhancing the
Employability of
Upper Basic School
Leavers in Gambia,
Guinea-Bissau,
Nigeria, and
Senegal
1

2. Presented at the Educational
Research Network for West and
Central Africa (ERNWACA)
Colloquium
Held at Bamako, Mali
2nd
– 3rd
March 2015
By: Burama L. J. Jammeh (PhD)
Principal Researcher for the ERNWACA Gambia Chapter
email: bjammeh47@gmail.com

3. OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION
• INTRODUCTION
• RESEARCH OBJECTIVES & QUESTIONS
• LITERATURE REVIEW
• METHODOLOGY/ METHODS
• RESULTS
– How Employability was Understood
– Social Demand For Employability
– Discrepancies in: (a) Curriculum Content &
Resources (b) Pedagogy
3

4. OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION Contd.
– Evaluation of Students Learning in relation to the
Required Competency
– Integrating Employability in School Programme of
Study
• RECOMMENDATIONS
• CONCLUSION
4

5. INTRODUCTION
Educational Research Network for West and Central Africa
(ERNWACA) in collaboration with Ministry of Basic and
Secondary Educatiion (MoBSE) coordinate the Project
Research Team/Contributors
•Dr. Burama L. J. Jammeh (Principal Researcher)
•Dr. Kenneth Igharo, University of The Gambia (Researcher)
•Mr. Momodou Cham, MoBSE (Researcher)
•Assistant Researchers
•School Working groups
•Dr. Yves Benett, Transnational Resource Person
•Mr. Cheikhou Touré, Transnational Principal Researcher
•Mr. Makaireh N’jie, the National Coordinator of ERNWACA
•Local Scientific Committee Members
5

6. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES & QUESTIONS
• Research Question 1: What are the
possible discrepancies between the
current Upper Basic School Curriculum
and the Social Demand for Employability?
• Research Objective 1: To identify the
discrepancies between the current
curriculum for Upper Basic School leavers
and the social demand for employability
6

7. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES & QUESTIONS contd.
Research Question 2: How feasible is it to
develop and implement a programme of study
for the Upper Basic School leavers which
integrates the concept of employability into the
curriculum?
Objective 2: To explore the feasibility of
developing a programme of study for the Upper
Basic School leavers which integrates the
concept of employability into the curriculum?
7

8. LITERATURE REVIEW
• Employability
• Competencies for employability
• Curriculum Integration
• Benefits of Integrating Academic and
Vocational Education
• Challenges in Implementing Integration
• Assessment of Employability Skills
8

9. LITERATURE: Employability
• Employability remains a contested concept in
terms of its use in both theory and policy
(McQuaid, Green and Danson (2005: 191)
• A set of skills, knowledge and personal
attributes that make an individual more likely
to secure and be successful in their chosen
occupation(s) to the benefit of themselves,
the workforce, the community and the
economy.
9

10. Employability Contd.
• Hillage and Pollard’s (1998) widely-cited
definition of employability, as an
individual's ability to gain initial
employment, maintain employment, move
between roles within the same
organisation, obtain new employment if
required and (ideally) secure suitable and
sufficiently fulfilling work
10

11. LITERATURE: Competencies for Employability
• Self-Management
• Communication
• Problem Solving
• Initiative & Enterprise
• Team Work
• Planning & Organising
• Technology
• Learning Ref: (Equals International (2012) and National Quality Council,
(February 2008):
• Framework for the reference of competencies (Enlish).docx
11

12. LITERATURE: Integration
• Integrating academic and competence-based
education
• Curriculum and Teaching Strategy
• School Organization e.g. rreplacing
departments with occupational clusters,
Combining departments and occupational
clusters, the career academy model.
“Academies” operate as schools-within-
schools. They align clusters of courses around
a specific career,
12

13. METHODOLOGY/ METHODS
• Preparations and sampling
• Development of Instruments
• Training workshop for the research team
• Project Inception workshop
• Progress Report and discussions
• Finalisation of the Instruments
• Data Collection
• Focus group
• Individual Teacher interviews
13

14. METHODOLOGY/ METHODS
contd.
Student Competency assessment
Lesson observation
Development of a programme of
study
Implementation, monitoring and
assessment of the students at the
end of their programme of study
14

15. RESULTS
• Presented in two main sections in line
with the two main research questions:
(1) What are the possible discrepancies
between the current Upper Basic School
curriculum and the social demand for
employability?
(2) How feasible is it to develop and implement
a programme of study for the Upper Basic
School leavers, which integrates the concept of
employability into the curriculum?
15

16. RESULTS: Understanding
Employability
Employability was understood as:
‘ability to be capably engaged in
something that enables one to
earn a living either by oneself (self-
employment) or being employed
by another’
16

17. RESULTS: Social Demand for Employability
• Perceived expected competencies of
school leavers = Social Demand:
–Literacy and numeracy abilities ,
–basic manipulative skills - display
some vocational and technical
knowhow or basic skills in technical
areas
–discipline, respect, courtesy,
commitment and hard work 17

18. RESULTS: Discrepancies in
Curriculum Content & Resources
• Inadequate content such as ICT,
entrepreneurial skills & other
prevocational programmes
• Too much focus on examinations and as
such, little or no time is devoted to
practice and developing competencies
• lack industrial experiences/attachment
• Negative perceptions about vocational
subjects 18

19. Discrepancies in Curriculum
Content & Resources Contd.
• To some, curriculum content has the
required competencies but the resources
needed to implement the curriculum are
lacking
– lack of textbooks for the selective subjects,
– limited time, material and human resources for
implementing practical lessons
– subject- matters are taught in abstract
– lack of adequate financial and skilled human
resources 19

20. RESULTS: Pedagogical Discrepancies
1. Pedagogical Objectives: lesson objectives are
generally in conformity with the delivery of
the necessary competencies and are clearly
in line with the issues of employability,
2. Pedagogical Approach: generally
transmissive, individual differences among
students were not catered for (63%
unsatisfactory) , learners’ autonomy not
promoted 23% satisfactory and mostly
irrelevant to the highlighted objectives.
20

21. Pedagogical Discrepancies contd.
3. Teaching Aids and Material were 86%
insufficient and 80% unsatisfactorily adapted to
learning.
4. Pedagogical Relationship: predominantly
(90%) vertical, that is, top-down from teacher to
students but the teacher generally
communicates effectively during the lesson
delivery.
5. Level of participation of students in the
lessons was generally unsatisfactory (57%)
21

22. Pedagogical Discrepancies
Opportunity for students to ask questions was in
the range of 66% unsatisfactory
6. The learning or working environment - the
ventilation, lightings, security, infrastructure &
equipment are conducive for learning (86% ) but
motivation of students recorded 50% satisfactory.
7. Integration of cross-cutting themes in the
lesson delivery: The lesson contents were 75%
unsatisfactorily linked to cross-cutting themes
such as good governance, ICT. Appendix 9.doc
22

23. Cumulative Average Satisfaction in
lesson observation

24. Level of satisfaction in Maths & General
Science Lessons
24

25. For all
subjects
The dominant
pedagogical
relationship
was 90%
vertical, which
means the
relation is top-
down from
teacher to
students
25

26. Evaluation of Students Learning for in
relation to the Required Competency
• Competencies for employability were grouped
in four main domains as follows.
• Competency 1: Ability to communicate in
three different languages including one’s
maternal language (or the most spoken
language in the community) both orally and
written.
• student performances in English and French
Languages are 41% and 25.5 % respectively
• Appendix 8.doc 26

27. Evaluation of Students Learning
Competency 2: Demonstrate understanding and
ability to apply basic concepts in mathematics,
sciences (natural and social) and technology.
•The students lack the understanding and
application of mathematics and scientific
concepts – effect of teaching abstract concepts
•unable to apply scientific approach to problem
solving and could not use the ICT to
communicate or solve problems
27

28. Evaluation of Students Learning
Competency 3: Capabilities of a responsible and
employable citizen
•Scores in relation to the capabilities of a
responsible and employable citizen were also
very low
Competency 4: autonomy, cooperative and
enterprising
•less than half (35.8%) of the candidates scored
more than 50% in one of the competency task
ANALYSES OF STUDENTS ASSESSMENT shortened.do
28

29. INTEGRATING EMPLOYABILITY IN THE
SCHOOL PROGRAMME OF STUDY
• entrepreneurship and the information and
communication technology
• integrating academic and technical/vocational
education
• Ensuring that the human (teachers) and
materials resources are available
• Develop & implement assessment tasks giving
students the opportunities to demonstrate
the pre-vocational skills
29

30. RESULTS: Integrating Employability
in School Programme of Study
• Career guidance in schools to identify the
talents of individual students and encouraging
them to concentrate on their talented areas,
• Proper and adequate learning materials, more
time and resources for practical applications,
linkages with industries and facilitating
students’ attachment to them,
30

31. Integrating Employability in School
Programme of Study contd.
• capacity building of teachers in curriculum
development and the integration of the
necessary competencies
• Enhance students’ ability to communicate in
at least two foreign languages
• suitable pedagogical approach, appropriate
pedagogical relationships and the emphasis
on the application, rather than on abstract are
important means of curriculum integration
31

32. RECOMMENDATION
• At the pilot school level
• Use the report for curriculum audit and
development of school programmes of study.
At the national level
• Conduct of a nationwide needs assessment in
order to take the future needs of society into
consideration.
• Introduction of career guidance and
counselling programme in schools
32

33. Recommendation contd.
• Emphasis placed on practical application of
knowledge
• Link between school and factories, workshops
and industries
• Curriculum should not be mainly
examinations-driven
• Build capacity of teacher on curriculum
development for them to relate curriculum to
real life situation also on action research
33

34. Recommendation contd.
• Equipped laboratories and pre-vocational
workshops, teaching aids (including relevant
textbooks and financial support) provided for
curriculum implementation.
34

35. CONCLUSION
This study heads towards
school-based curriculum
development, improvement
and enrichment
THE END: Thanks
35