Abstract:

The aim of Technical and Vocational Education (TVE) system in Bahrain is to equip the students with the skills, knowledge and work ethic required for various industries, such as electrical, electronic, telecommunications, building services, mechanical engineering and computer technology. The TVE system is a two-tier system of education comprising School-based Learning (containing specialised technical modules delivered in the school environment) and Work-based Learning (including work placement periods) intended to equip the students with cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills essential for their future careers.

This paper is directed at improving the quality of graduates coming out from the (TVE) system. An employability skills training model was specifically proposed and developed based on extensive literature survey and exploratory studies conducted by the author. A skills gap was determined through quantitative and qualitative analysis of the responses of the stakeholders (teachers from TVE institutions, industrial supervisors and specialists from Human Resources departments from industry).

Furthermore, to interlink employability skills requirements with teaching and learning provisions within TVE, the new employability skills training model could be used for structuring the content of engineering courses in the TVE system with respect to cognitive, affective, and psychomotor skills, to satisfy both the TVE (internal) objectives and industrial (external) requirements. The model has incorporated components and the categories for developing learning resources for engineering courses which were easily organised and were important because they complement each other. It also included employability skills for the future which are repetitively requested by the modern industry. So, in the long-term, the engineering courses included in the TVE curriculum will create the skilled and educated workforce that will be required to help driving sustainable economic growth.