POLYTECHNIC ACADEMIC AND ADMINISTRATORS’ PERCEPTION ABOUT THE USEFULNESS OF THE NPT (045) LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT CAPACITY BUILDING PROJECT

ABSTRACT

The study investigated polytechnic academic and administrators’ perceptions about the usefulness of the implementation of the leadership and management capacity building project in Ghanaian polytechnics. The study targeted four public polytechnics in the northern sector which included Sunyani Polytechnic, Wa Polytechnic, Balgatanga Polytecnic and Tamale Polytechnic. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The sample for the study included purposively selected 16 middle-level polytechnic administrators and 25 academic staff who participated in Sub-Project 2 and Sub-Project 3 of the NPT(045) leadership and management capacity building training. The main instruments for data collection were questionnaire and structured interview guide. The Institutional Change Coordinators were interviewed whilst the rest of the participants in the study responded to a four scaled Likert type scaled questionnaire. The instruments were pre-tested at Kumasi Polytechnics to ascertain its validity and reliability. The pre-test result yielded a standardised Chronbach’s alpha of .70. The results revealed that majority of the respondents agreed that the training has improved their performance on the job. It further emerged from the study that there was no statistical difference between academic and administrators about their perceived usefulness of the NPT (045) training. Based on the finding of the study, it is recommended that future leadership and management capacity building training should be decentralized to enable more polytechnic staff to benefit.