Capacity Building: Implications for Sustainable Development in Ghanaian Polytechnics

This descriptive study examines the facts concerning capacity building. It considers the implications, arising from the review of the literarure, for sustainable development in Ghanaian polytechnics in their quest to train career-focused graduates for the nation’s industries. Polytechnics in Ghana are expected to use competency-based training (CBT) curriculum for their programmes so that their students could be more practically oriented to be ready for the world of work.Capacity building should therefore be a necessary component of policies to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in these polytechnics. Apart from gaining pedagogical and content knowledge, lecturers’ participation in capacity building interventions enhances capacity building effectiveness in the polytechnics. Without it, a missing gap evolves whereby the polytechnics become shadows of themselves. Unfortunately, capacity building efforts by the polytechnics have been hampered by institutional inadequacies, chief among them being training-related issues, infrastructural limitations and lack of funds. The consequences of this are inefficiencies and poor quality of delivery and research output among lecturers in the polytechnics.

To stem the tide of teacher underperformance, the central argument in this paper is that building teacher capacity is critical to successful teaching and learning. Towards this end, the paper identifies some intervention strategies for helping polytechnic teachers to improve their skills, knowledge and competences, involving concurrent provision of appropriate training, provision of necessary resources, materials and infrastructure. It concludes by calling on the management of the polytechnics to create an enabling environment that would encourage the lecturers to participate fully in capacity building programmes.