Educational measurement/assessment Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Recently the Ethiopian economy has grown significantly. Accordingly, the government has prioritized industrial skills development and expanded technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Nevertheless, the unemployment rate for TVET graduates is high, and little scholarly effort has been expended to empirically identify the exact types and domains of skills in which supply-demand mismatches happen. To measure the perception gaps between the supply and demand sides of worker skills and explain why mismatches occur, we conducted an assessment in which assessors from the employer side and the TVET trainer side concurrently graded the garment manufacturing vocational skills of the same workers. For this purpose, we developed a unique instrument that captures the knowledge and skills of workers in real work environments.
The labor market for the Ethiopian garment sector is characterized by the parallel existence of firms under foreign direct investment (FDI), domestic firms, and self-employment. Our study revealed that the skills demanded for employment in domestic firms and for becoming self-employed are very different in nature, yet the Ethiopian Occupational Standard (EOS) tries to overarch the needs of both. Our initial survey with FDI factory managers suggests that the workers in those factories are younger than those in domestic firms and a smaller percentage of them hold TVET certificates. Meanwhile, domestic firms, lacking the capacity to train their workers internally, often look for workers from TVET in order to benefit from external training services both before and during employment. Still, even among domestic firms, partnerships with TVET are limited due to lack of trust in the capacity of TVET institutions and trainers to prepare the workforce properly.
In terms of perceptions of workers’ skills, there are several layers of mismatch not only between TVET and employers but also between TVET trainers and students. These should be considered comprehensively, not as separate issues, because the root causes are linked.
Our survey found that TVET trainers appreciate workers with skills covering all processes of garment production, including pattern making and analysis of garment structure in addition to cutting, sewing, and finishing. Meanwhile, factory managers, whose interests are focused on sewing and finishing skills, are very severe in grading workers’ performance in those two domains. We also found that workers’ overall performance depends greatly on their competence in sewing and finishing, and their level of competence is influenced by the availability of training and quality control in the workplace.
Another layer of mismatch is between TVET trainers and students. In TVET, we found that many students aspire to be self-employed or in a supervisory position, rather than to be employed as floor workers in factories. At the same time, trainers are not confident about teaching the skills necessary for the types of work to which students aspire. Moreover, trainers are not very familiar with the latest machines used in factories. Therefore, there are gaps at both ends: On the one hand, trainers’ perceptions about important skills do not match students’ aspirations. On the other hand, the practical skills TVET trainers teach do not correspond to the expectations of industry. Meanwhile, workforce demand in the garment industry is mostly for machine operators on the production line—job opportunities that TVET graduates are not excited about—rather than for designers or pattern makers, let alone supervisors. Therefore, in spite of labor demand, TVET-trained people do not often apply for these jobs. Further, since TVET trainers’ skills are not frequently updated, even though they themselves are confident about the skills they teach, factory managers do not consider them appropriate. A final layer of issues surrounds the mismatch between the EOS, which broadly covers skills from body measurement and sewing to pattern making and design, and the specific demands of the garment industry.
Last, the report points out that noncognitive or “soft” skills are as important as production skills. Our questionnaire found that factory managers highly value noncognitive skills such as punctuality, discipline, and tidiness. Also, workers’ self-estimation of their own noncognitive capacities is an important determinant of their performance. One positive finding for TVET is that TVET graduates demonstrate higher levels of noncognitive skills than do workers trained only in the factories. For the formation of noncognitive skills, people need to be exposed to an environment in which their attitude and behavior are evaluated according to an ethical framework, a clear contrast to production skills, which can be formed rather quickly, without much school-based training or long work experience.