Monday 2 January 2012


PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS ANALYSIS  OF EMPLOYERS’ SATISFACTION WITH POLYTECHNIC EDUCATION. A TRACER STUDY OF KOFORIDUA POLYTECHNIC GRADUATES.

BY
G.K. ABLEDU
A PAPER PRESENTED AT THE KOFORIDUA POLYTECHNIC’S THIRD(3RD ) APPLIED RESEARCH CONFERENCE FROM 17TH  TO 20TH  MAY, 2010
ABSTRACT
Koforidua polytechnic had been involved in developing human resources through regular, evening and doorstep programmes. It thus has the responsibility to keep track of the performance of their graduates to determine accountability and whether or not her programmes have impacted on the individual, the institution, or the country. However, no reliable data exist on the employment of its graduates nor have the view of students and employers been ascertained as to the relevance and usefulness of programmes offered.
Employers are concerned with how adequate or otherwise, polytechnic education in Ghana provides for manpower needs of manufacturing industries. Up until now, no study had been carried out by Koforidua polytechnic to determine the influence of its programmes in meeting human resources needs of the economy.
ln order to respond to these concerns, this tracer study was undertaken to ascertain the effectiveness of polytechnic education as manifested by the employability of its graduates. The study had special significance. First, it provided a process of evaluation of the performance of Koforidua Polytechnic graduates and secondly the results would form data base for the institution. The main objective of the study was to assess employers’ and employees’ satisfaction with polytechnic education.
The target population comprised of 5,015 graduates from the departments of Accountancy, Marketing, Purchasing and supply, Statistics, Computer Science and Networking Management from 1999 to 2009 graduates. The study targeted 40% of the graduates from each cohort. This gave a sample of 2000 graduates.
Principal Components and Ordinal Regression  Analysis of the results indicated an average rating of the employers. Knowledge and skills gained during their studies were useful and relevant to their jobs, and to the development needs of the country.
Keywords: Tracer study, employers, employability, polytechnic graduates, data base, polytechnic education, manpower needs.

MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF ASSESSMENT OF ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS  IN THE GHANAIAN POLYTECHNICS
BY
G.K. Abledu
(School of Applied Science and Technology)
A PAPER PRESENTED AT THE KOFORIDUA POLYTECHNIC’S THIRD (3RD) APPLIED RESEARCH CONFERENCE: - 17TH TO 20TH  MAY, 2010


ABSTRACT
One of the challenges of the educational reform introduced in 1987 was the introduction of continuous assessment as a component of students’ final assessment in educational institution.  The main purpose of having a continuous assessment scheme as an internal component of assessment procedures was to eliminate/minimize the element of risk associated with a single examination, and to give a valid indication of students’ achievement, because it was felt that no student who worked conscientiously should fail.
The National Board for Professional and Technician Examinations NABPTEX besides other functions performs the role of an examination body for professional and technical institutions including the Polytechnics. The Board provides the necessary administration of the final examination and the certification of students. The Board ensures that standards are comparable in all the professional and technical institutions that they provide such service.
However, problems of comparability arise in situations where examinations are conducted by the individual schools. The issue of who takes the overall responsibility of assessing the work of students,- the teacher or any accredited examining body- has, in fact, received more attention than any other matters of relevance in education worldwide.  There is widespread agreement about the difficulty in measuring student learning outcomes (Hearn, Griswold, and Marine, 1996). This difficulty, in turn, makes it very challenging, if not impossible, to design coherent and effective outcomes assessment policies. The question that comes to mind is:  How have the polytechnics dealt with this difficulty?
The objective of this study was therefore to find out whether administrative and technical problems existed in the assessment and certification of students in the Ghanaian Polytechnics and to find out the causes and the extent to which such factors brought about weaknesses in the conduct of continuous assessment and final examination. It was hypothesizes that the assessment processes and the weighting of continuous assessment in the various Polytechnics were similar. The population for the study was Polytechnics in Ghana, and a convenient sample of six polytechnics was used for the study.
The results of the study revealed that the assessment of students’ academic performance was conducted using a variety of available instruments and methods, and these instruments and methods varied from polytechnic to polytechnic.


Keywords: continuous assessment, final examination, student learning, weighting, academic performance.


Customer Repay/Default of Loan Prediction Modeling with Multiple Discriminant Analysis. A Case Study of Financial Institutions in the Eastern Region of Ghana
A PAPER PRESENTED AT THE KOFORIDUA POLYTECHNIC’S SECOND (2ND ) APPLIED RESEARCH CONFERENCE: -  22ND  to 23RD  April, 2009
By
Godfred Kwame Abledu(godfredabledu@gmail.com)
Department of Applied Mathematics, Koforidua Polytechnic
ABSTRACT
Banks that lend to small businesses and individuals need to quickly assess the creditworthiness of prospective borrowers so as to reduce the probability of issuing bad loans while attempting to maintain their own profitability. It was for these reasons that credit institutions have made several attempts at modeling and reliably forecasting credit default using numerous statistical approaches.
The objective of the study was to develop a model which could be used to identify likely future defaulters. The population for the study was all financial institutions in the Eastern Region of Ghana. A bank that could give the needed data for the study was purposefully chosen. Data on a sample of 150 customers was analysed using the SPSS version 17.
The study identified four important influences - total asset, total income, family size and number of years with current employer as the most discriminating variables between the repay and default group. The validity of the model was confirmed using several diagnostic analytical procedures.  The importance of examining a model’s sensitivity and specificity in the context of one’s specific, real-world objectives was also discussed.
Key words: Repay; default; creditworthiness; prospective borrowers;, bank loan; model; discriminant function; discriminating variables.