Quality Technical Vocational Education in Botswana: A Key Requirement for Curriculum Development

This study explored the quality of technical and vocational education as a key requirement for curriculum development. The research explored the current level of involvement of lecturers in curriculum development and the alignment of curricula of Certificate and Diploma levels. The 21^st century technological advances had challenged Botswana’s technical and vocational education sector to relook at their curricula competitiveness. The literature had revealed that non-involvement of curriculum implementers during curriculum development resulted in a congested curriculum and insufficient resources. This study investigated how lecturer involvement and alignment of Certificate and Diploma curriculum can promote the quality of technical and vocational education in Botswana. More focus was placed on the involvement of lecturers during curriculum development and the alignment of curriculum between the certificate and diploma offering levels. The study used high breed convergent parallel mixed method which combined qualitative and quantitative methods. Combining the two methods provided a deeper understanding of the phenomena under study. The study findings revealed that, though lecturers are key during delivery, their involvement during curriculum development is very minimal. Majority of the lecturers are involved at the implementation stage. Furthermore, the lecturers had mixed perceptions regarding the competency of the current curriculum as they reiterated that, needs analysis was not carried out before implementation of the curriculum framework in use. The results also confirmed that a quality curriculum would promote the creativity and innovation of the students. The findings authenticated that an aligned curriculum is key in education as it assists; policy makers, easy transition and upgrades student performance as they would link their previous knowledge with the current information being taught. Finally the study revealed that, the involvement of stakeholders in curriculum development has positive implications such as reduced skills mismatch, improved curriculum relevance, assist in content coverage, it aligns resources and teaching methods. The research recommended that, for quality curriculum to be developed, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development should ensure that capacitation of both curriculum developers and implementers is included in the curriculum framework. Furthermore the Ministry should emphasise collaboration and harmonization of the Certificate and Diploma curriculum development process.