Indigenous Knowledge Management Systems in Technical and Vocational Training and Educational Colleges in Addis Ababa

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess availability of indigenous knowledge management systems in the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) Colleges in Addis Ababa. The study employed a descriptive research design and a mixed methods approach. Data were collected from 323 Trainers of five selected TVET Colleges namely: General Wingate, Entoto, Misrak and Tegbare Id Poly Technic colleges and the Arada Industrial College. Interviews were also conducted with officials of the Addis Ababa TVET Agency and the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sports. Data analysis was done using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviations and thematic analysis. The findings revealed that, there is a national level policy direction to incorporate IKs into the TVET system. However, the application of IKM in the studied TVET Colleges was found at a moderate level (M=2.8; SD=0.9). This is, among others, due to society’s inclination towards modern thoughts of TVET, inadequate government attention, complexity of IK collection and development, diversity of IKs, dearth of professionals in the area, absence of effective collaboration among stakeholders, and  inadequate coverage of the intellectual property rights system, language barriers and limited media engagement. Therefore, unless an effective indigenous knowledge management implementation strategy is designed and put in to practice, the TVET system could gradually contribute to extinction of indigenous knowledge.