Appraising Capability Models for Conceptualising the Development of Competencies amongst Students of the Higher Technical Teachers' Training College (HTTTC), Kumba

Notions of competency have dominated the teacher education literature, and have underpinned Competency-Based Training in educational leadership at all levels of education and training. The emergence of counter-narratives underpinned by the capability movement, have as yet had minimal impact on practice in teacher education. New discourses in educational theory and practice which are founded on non-linear approaches to learning and teaching provide added impetus to engage in the competency/capability debate, and re-examine our approaches to educational leadership. This paper explores complexity theories and demonstrates how complexity's pedagogical implications can lead to new models for understanding educational leadership learning and teaching. A new model for conceptualizing end-user educational leadership is presented that was derived from a three-year action research initiative with pre-service teachers. The premise of the study assumed that there is no relationship between the capability approach and the development of students' competencies in the Higher Technical Teachers' Training College Kumba. The study had as specific objectives to identify the teaching and learning strategies used, examine the use of the Capability approach in the development of competencies of students and the challenges faced by both the students and teachers in the implementation of the capability approach in developing competencies in the Higher Technical Teachers' Training College Kumba. The sample constituted 190 questionnaires administered to the students of HTTTC Kumba and 5 interviewed conducted with teachers of the school. The findings of this study showed that teachers of the HTTTC Kumba highly implement group discussion, brainstorming and demonstration whereas role play and lecture/presentation methods are only implemented to a lesser extent. Findings also showed that the students have the freedom and are guided towards what they are best at doing but for the fact that resources are insufficient to facilitate the implementation of this approach. The spearman rank correlation was 0.586 indicating a strong positive relationship between the use of the capability approach and the development of students' competences in HTTTC Kumba. The study concluded in favour of Sen's findings that technical education today is the most valuable means by which the quality of a country's development is determined. This is because capable people are more likely to be able to deal effectively with the turbulent environment in which they live by possessing this '˜all round' capacity. The important practical point stressed here however was that the development of core competences by students could lead, as a secondary effect, to a more sustainable and democratic society. As such, inferences was drawn that for Cameroon to become Emerging by the year 2035 competency development in Technical Education need to be given adequate attention. Massa Ernest Massa"Appraising Capability Models for Conceptualising the Development of Competencies amongst Students of the Higher Technical Teachers' Training College (HTTTC), Kumba" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-2 | Issue-2 , February 2018, URL: http://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd10701.pdf http://www.ijtsrd.com/management/other/10701/appraising-capability-models-for-conceptualising-the-development-of-competencies-amongst-students-of-the--higher-technical-teachers'-training-college-htttc-kumba/massa-ernest-massa