Bridging skills gaps in higher education through industrial attachment to academic staff in Tanzania

Abstract

Academic staff is the instrument for students' competence development; therefore, their lack of industrial experience, either because they have not had opportunities to practice what they teach or because significant changes in knowledge, skills, and technology have occurred since they last worked in the field, negatively impacts their students' employability and contributions to the national, regional, and global development agenda. Therefore, this study aimed to address the practical skill gap by examining industrial attachment for academic staff. Guided by Kolb’s experiential learning theory, the study used an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design. Data were collected through semi-structured questionnaires from 145 (57%) of 255 academic staff sampled via cluster sampling across eight campuses of the Tanzania Institute of Accountancy. Key informant interviews were conducted with 10 senior staff members purposively sampled from each department. The analysis involved descriptive statistics and thematic analysis techniques. Results revealed a lack of a broad range of practical skills among academic staff. Although they were aware of potential organisations for enhancing their practical skills, the programme requires institutional, financial, and policy strategies to facilitate effective and successful industrial attachment. The study concludes that since academic staff are aware of the practical skills they lack and the organisations suitable for acquiring such skills, it is now imperative for higher education institutions to develop effective strategies for successful industrial attachment programmes for their academic staff. Equipping academic staff with relevant practical skills through industrial attachment will enable them to better plan, teach, assess, and review curricula to enhance the practical skills required in the labour market. Future research will focus on developing a measurement scale for assessing practical skills in post-industrial attachment.