Adoption of Web Based Technology to Facilitate Industrial Attachment Schemes in Tertiary Institutions: A Case Takoradi Polytechnic, Ghana

Abstract

It is currently no doubt globally that Information Communication Technology (ICT) inventions and innovations have become integral part of our lives and also brought about significant changes and improvement in productivity at workplaces. A number of Institutions in Africa are yet to tap into the efficient and cost saving benefits of ICT innovations. Tertiary students especially those in the polytechnics are made to undergo industrial attachment in order to equip themselves with practical oriented skills and work ethics that cannot be fully acquired in the classroom.  This fits into the objective of establishing polytechnics, as other researchers have noted, as technological institutions with the responsibility for providing career-focused education and skills training in close collaboration with industry. However, the Industrial Liaison Office of various polytechnics who are to coordinate the linkage between industry and academia are overwhelmed by administrative tasks of placement of students in industry and associated supervisory duties. The authors adopted prototyping methodology to develop a Web-based Application for use by Industrial Liaison Office of Takoradi Polytechnic to help facilitate administrative processes of printing attachment letters and generating industrial attachment supervision list based on entries students fill online. Software development processes of the adopted methodology were carried out through to the final deployment stage. The Application is recommended for use by any institution which wants to use software to help facilitate their industrial attachment programme processes.

Keywords: Takoradi Polytechnic, Portal, Industrial Liaison Office, students, letter,