Practices of cooperative training in the Amhara Regional State TVET colleges and companies, Ethiopia

The purpose of this study was to examine the practice of CT, companies' involvement in CT, TVET Colleges' and companies' trainers' engagement in CT from trainers' and trainees' perspectives and to determine whether their perspectives are significantly different. The current study also examined the influence of the involvement or engagement level of company/enterprise, company supervisors and TVET College trainers in CT program implementation. For this purpose, the convergent parallel mixed-methods design was employed. A sample of 207 trainers and 211 trainees were involved in this study. Questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were employed to collect quantitative and qualitative data, respectively. Cronbach's alpha value for the reliability of the instrument ranged between .74 and .94. The independent-sample t-test, Pearson's correlation, and regression methods were used to analyze quantitative data. The thematic analysis method was used to analyze qualitative data using research questions as core themes. In this study, we found that the CT practice, company, and TVET trainers' engagement in CT-related tasks were at a medium level, but the companies' involvement in CT implementation was low. The TVET trainers and trainees had significantly different views regarding the level of CT practice, companies' involvement, supervisors' and trainers' engagement in CT activities. In conclusion, the companies' involvement level and TVET trainers' engagement level showed large influences on CT practice. Based on these findings, we recommended the need for devising binding rules and regulations in a way that enforces accountability amongst all stakeholders of the CT program in the TVET system.