Quality Assurance in Higher Technical Education and the Context of Youth Empowerment for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Recent empirical evidences on higher technical education at a national scale focused on the relevance, student’s poor perception, low enrolment and progression rates, and the growing impact of globalization on the management of higher technical and vocational education with little or no reference point to the factor of quality assurance. This paper therefore correlates quality assurance factors in higher technical education and the context of youth empowerment for sustainable development. A survey of public technical colleges was done in Ogun State. From an estimate population of 637 final year students and 28 instructors and management staff, a simple of 376 students and 17 instructors and management staff were selected using the stratify random sampling technique. A 4-point rating scale validated questionnaires tagged: ‘Higher Technical Education, Youth Empowerment and Sustainable Development Scale (HTEYESDS) (r=0.79), complemented with focus Group Discussion (FGD) was used for data collection. Three research questions were raised and answered. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics of Pearson correlation, multiple regression and analysis of variance at 0.05 apha level. Results showed that poor quality assurance limits the capacity of higher technical education in the empowerment of youth for sustainable development (82.6%). Quality assurance factors significantly correlated with higher technical education in the empowerment of youth for sustainable development (r=0.188; P < 0.05). It was therefore recommended that government should neither neglect nor compromise the factors of quality assurance in higher technical education as they predicts youth empowerment drive in the system.