Students' Career Aspirations and Pedagogical Experiences in Ghanaian Universities

Abstract

In this 21st Century, the role of higher education (HE) has shifted from the dominance of knowledge transmission to the development of relevant skills for national development and for solving society's problems. This study therefore explored students' career aspirations and their pedagogical experiences during their university education in selected private and public Ghanaian universities. To gather data for the study, interviews were held with 10 lecturers and one focus group discussion with six students in each of the eight departments selected from both the public and private universities. Using thematic analysis, the data reveal that students go to university with high expectations of acquiring skills that would make them marketable, and in some cases, entrepreneurial to enable them to establish their own businesses. However, while in some private universities and specific academic programmes, manageable class sizes and learning resources allow for participatory and practical activities, large classes in public universities and certain programmes lend themselves to the dominance of theoretical approaches and knowledge transmission. Thus, there are identified gaps between students' expectations and actual pedagogical experiences in higher education institutions. This may suggest that the type of university and academic programme one accesses determines the skills one acquires, and one's employability in Ghana. Accordingly, we suggest that Ghanaian universities focus more on creating the kind of teaching and learning environments that will foster the use of participatory and practical approaches and the development of students' critical thinking, innovative and problem-solving skills