Academic Programming and Labour Market Trends in Ghana: A Situational Analysis
Keywords:
Academic programming, labour market, tertiary education, enrollments, quality assuranceAbstract
The paper undertakes a snapshot of the labour market analysis and academic programming in Ghana. The labour market was operationalised by the number of peer institutions accredited to offer similar academic programmes and enrollments representing the supply side and the number of advertisements for various qualifications, representing the demand side. Cumulative frequencies and percentage demand were compared with proposed national norms and performance targets. The results suggested that enrollments in tertiary education institutions in Ghana are not in consonance with public policy targets and these are also not aligned with labour market trends. There is a mismatch between demands for humanities heavily represented by business-related programmes and demand for the sciences against a national enrollment norm of 60:40 for Science and Humanities respectively. The study found that at the undergraduate level enrollment was 35:65 in 2002 and 38: 62 in 2008; a clear mismatch with the national enrollment norm. However, the observation in all data sources matches the observed labour market demand ratio of 34:66 in 2002 and the observed 39:61 in the current study. The virtual lack of consistent and comprehensive data on the labour market, enrollment and graduation statistics at both intuitional and national levels contributes largely to the observed trend.
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