Application of Talent Skilling and Knowledge Production as Transformative Education Strategies in Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Ugandan Private and Public Universities

Abstract

Previous research indicates that Uganda’s formal education is largely theoretical and detached from reality because most of its graduates are not practically productive enough to be employable in the labour market or to create their own jobs. One of the common recommendations highlighted in this research is thus to make this education practical at all levels, including the university level. While research has discussed how Uganda has adopted skilling as a transformative education strategy, much of the attention has focused on the skilling of lower-level learners and school dropouts. Also, student participation in practical knowledge production has not been amply explored. As such, the extent to which skilling and student participation in knowledge production are used by Ugandan universities remains understudied. This study analyses this extent and whether it differs between private and public universities. The study was conducted as a comparative cross-sectional survey involving 250 lecturers and 384 students selected using both simple random and stratified sampling from two public and two private universities in central Uganda. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire and descriptive cross-tabulation involving Chi-Square analysis. The findings indicate that the extent to which talent skilling and student participation in the production of practical knowledge were used to prepare students was very low and did not significantly differ between private and public universities. Only 7.4% of lecturers and 7.8% of students, of whom 6.8% were from private universities and 8.7% from public universities, revealed a high extent of using talent skilling and student participation in knowledge production. These respondents were mostly from departments of sports, music, dance, drama, law, economics, commerce, literature and natural sciences. Conclusively, these findings indicate that transformative education through talent skilling and student participation in knowledge production is negligibly used in Uganda’s universities. The article thus recommends to the management of Uganda’s universities to promote the use of talent skilling and student participation in knowledge production for all enrolled students.