A Proposed Framework / System For Online Assessment Of Students On Industrial Attachment Program In Technical And Vocational Institutions In Ghana: A Case Study Of Cape Coast Technical Institute.

Assessment is a vital part of every institution, be it formal or non-formal. Students, teachers and education authorities rely on assessment to take important decisions concerning the grades and possible future of their students. Technical and Vocational Institutions as part of their curriculum engage in Supervised Industrial Attachment (SIA) programme for students. This Supervised Industrial Attachment (SIA) programme helps to equip students with the necessary knowledge and skills to buttress what they learnt at school. It also gives them the opportunity to practice on the field of work and to prepare them for the work environment. Students on Industrial Attachment are assessed on their performance in the various Industries where they are attached to. This research analyses the processes involved in the assessment of students on Supervised Industrial Attachment (SIA), and proposes ways to improve these assessment processes to make it more effective, efficient, well-structured and secured by means of an easily accessible electronic system that runs on all android systems. A survey was carried out with questionnaires in order to elicit from users their views, experience, and short comings of the current manual system of assessing students on industrial attachment the challenges faced with that system and the need for a new improved online computerized system which is a more efficient system and what the requirements of this proposed system should be. Some limitations of the current system of assessment from the survey showed that student’s assessment report can easily get lost or damaged, student can manipulate their assessment reports, and these reports sometimes get to their institution late. There is also the case of inadequate record or lack of records on industrial attachment of previous years in the institutions. The outcome of the survey focused on students, teachers, operational managers of some Industries in Ghana, some privately-owned construction companies and tailoring shops all in Cape Coast. The outcome of the survey revealed that most of these teachers, students and operational managers would rather prefer an online electronic computerized system to the currently used paper based manual system, which is secure, fast, convenient and easily accessible. From the survey conducted, most of these teachers, students and operational managers have the basic knowledge in Information Technology needed to use such an online system, they all have access to internet and computers in their various institutions needed to connect to the proposed system’s platform and fill out attachment assessment details and overall attachment assessment marks for the students. These marks can be accessible by both the student’s institution and the industries’ operational managers. Based on these findings a prototype of the electronic / online industrial attachment assessment system was proposed, designed and developed. There are few recommendations such as; Industrial attachment supervisors should be given inservice training on how to train students and assess them on industrial attachment, student’s marks from industrial attachment should be part of the term’s academic report, the online application be explored further to encompass all institutions that run industrial attachment program. Educational institutions and ICT industries also have the opportunity to improve the system and incorporate other modules that might be needed in educational and employment industry. Furthermore, mobile friendly versions of this online assessment system can be developed as future work.

Source: KNUST