Perception of Beneficiaries and Stakeholders About Vocational Education in Ghana: A Case Study in Ashanti Region, Ghana
Background: Technical and Vocational Education is considered by many nations as an important catalyst in the development of a country, however much investment and research have not been done to enriching vocational education. This study therefore, delve into the perception and factors that influence beneficiaries in acquiring vocational education, and the impact of vocational education on vocational graduates and also to assess the factors the inhibit the full actualization of skills acquired from vocational education. Methods: In pursuit of the stated objective descriptive cross-sectional survey was adopted as the research design for this study. Data was sourced from both primary and secondary sources. Structured questionnaire which was the main research instrument was used to elicit information from the participants consisting beneficiaries and stakeholders from Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Results: The findings showed an R 2 value of 0.874 which reveals that, the factors influence the choice of vocational education by beneficiaries accounted for 0.0874% of the variation in a choice vocational education. The f-statistics of 86.922 reveals that the model is statistically significant at 0.05 significant level. On the impact of vocational education on the beneficiaries’ occupation, majority of them agreed to the fact that vocational education gave them the necessary technical and entrepreneurial skills. The beneficiaries however have a negative perception about vocation education while stakeholders hold a contrary perception. Conclusion: Vocational education plays a critical role in development hence governments must prioritise vocational education development. However, developing vocational education requires a complete understanding of the factors that affect vocational education development; hence a broader study should be conducted to identify these factors. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-5-01 Publication date: February 29 th 2020