Employers Satisfaction with Polytechnic Education

Employers are concerned with how adequate or otherwise polytechnic education in Ghana provides for the manpower needs of manufacturing industries. Up until now, no study had been carried out by Koforidua Polytechnic which has been involved in developing human resources through regular, evening and doorstep programs. Until now no study has been undertaken to determine the influence of its programs in meeting human resources needs of the economy. In order to respond to these concerns a tracer study was undertaken to ascertain the effectiveness of Polytechnic education with regard to employability of its graduates. The objective of this study was, in particular, to assess the extent to which Polytechnic education produces the types, mixes and qualities of skilled human resources that meet the demands of the current labour market in Ghana. It also aimed to identify the perception of employers concerning the employability skills needed by polytechnic graduates. The target population comprised 5,015 graduates from the Departments of Accountancy, Marketing, Purchasing and Supply, Statistics, Computer Science and Networking Management from 1999 to 2009. The study targeted 40% of the graduates from each cohort. This gave a sample of 2000 graduates. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the employers of these graduates. Principal Components and Ordinal Regression Analysis of the results indicated that employers’ were satisfied with Polytechnic education. Knowledge and skills gained by the students during their studies were useful and relevant to their jobs, and to the developmental needs of the country. However, the study also revealed that there are supply-demand gaps in graduate output which contribute to the problem of graduate unemployment in the country