Evaluation of the Curriculum of Electronics Trade Courses in Bangladesh

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2018 in the subject Pedagogy - Miscellaneous Topics, , course: Basic Trade Course, language: English, abstract: The aim of the study is to evaluate the curriculum of electronics trade courses in Bangladesh to find the cause of trainee shortage in these courses and the gap between courses on offer and the most demanded competencies by industries in the subsector. Among the responsive electronics firms in this study, 78% were involved in assembling, repairing and servicing jobs, rather than in one specialized activity. Their demand for service-oriented workforce (77%) is higher than that for production-oriented workforce (23%). The workforce at present is predominantly male (80.53% male against 19.47% female). The education level and training for the largest group of the employed workforce are HSC and below HSC with some skill training (44%). The next-largest groups comprise Diploma in Engineering (25%) followed by Degree in Engineering or above (6%) and General Degree and above (3%), respectively. In respect of new workforce recruitment, a significant number of workers (22%) are employed without any prior technical training, but are given in-house or unstructured apprenticeship training in the workplace after recruitment. According to frequency of mention by employers, gaps in skills identified at initial recruitment were the lack of core skills (25%), which was ranked as the largest skill gap, followed by the lack of common/sector-specific skill, basic/generic skill and work experience with 20%, 15%, and 17% frequency of mention, respectively. In both the public and private TVET providers' trade courses, it appears, the curriculum format, course contents and clustering of competencies do not match the demand of the industries. The existing trade courses are not designed according to the changing demand of the industry. The clustering of the competencies in the trade courses does not appear to be responsive to employers' needs. The combination of core, common and basic competencies in training courses in terms of knowledge, skills and attitude does not reflect the employers' expectations.