HIGHER EDUCATION CURRICULUM ORIENTATION AND PERFORMANCE OF UNIVERSITIES IN KENYA: INDUSTRY LINKAGE STRATEGIES
Dr. Orucho M. Ngala - School of Business and Economics, Co-operative University of Kenya, Kenya
ABSTRACT
In order to achieve quality education and training it would be critical to orient the academic curriculum in such a way that its content reflects the demand by the industry. Curriculum also need to be regularly reviewed after every cycle in order to capture the emerging issues in the changing economic environment. The main objective of the study was to assess the extent to which linking university curricula to the needs of the industry would influence performance of universities in Kenya. The main theory used to anchor the study is the Resource based view. The research design used in this study was Cross-Sectional survey. Sixty five (65) public and private universities incorporated in Kenya were used as the population in the study. The sample size constituted forty seven (47) universities which had undergone at least one (1) graduation cycle. Primary and secondary data were collected by the use of semi-structured questionnaires and reviewingexisting university documents and regulatory bodies’ websites respectively. Correlation and regression analyses were used to test hypotheses. ANOVA was used to determine the differences between group means. Balanced score card was appropriately used to represent financial and non-financial aspects that constitute performance indicators. It was established that positive and significant correlations existed between curriculum orientation and university performance. The findings offer insight to university authorities and policy makers by reinforcing the role of collaborative strategies when developing and reviewing academic curricula. University authorities need to enhance collaboration with the industry in order to substantially exploit the synergies resulting from enhanced symbiotic correlations between university and the industry. The main limitation of this study is that primary data was collected from only one respondent per university but common methods bias was mitigated through the use of additional secondary data to validate primary data. Thus, the limitation did not affect the credence of the results as presented and discussed.
