Professional development on innovation competence of teaching staff in Ugandan universities

Professional Development on Innovation Competence of Teaching Staff in Ugandan Universities

George Wilson Kasule

Abstract

Sufficient university teaching staff with innovation competence is key if universities want to play a significant role in fostering sustainable development as well as improving peoples’ quality of life. In this knowledge and innovation era, the need for organisations to enable their employees to acquire the competencies they need to face the diversity and complication of their present and future tasks effectively cannot be overstressed. Competence development is paramount for human resource and capacity development, which in turn can result into sustainable socio-economic development and performance improvement in the different labour sectors. Accordingly, this has led to increasing interest to develop competence profiles for the different professionals in several labour sectors. However, in the university sector little is known regarding the competencies teaching staff require for innovation of higher education. As such, this thesis is set to contribute to this literature gap by presenting innovation competence domains and competencies university teaching staff require. The study also explores the pragmatic actions that are needed to enhance university teaching staff innovation competence. In specific terms, this dissertation addresses innovation competence of teaching staff of a Ugandan University. It started with a review of the theory on innovation competence of teaching staff in higher education, and what was observed was that there was little literature on this theme, especially not when combined with the notion that this study is situated in a developing country. Therefore local stakeholders were invited to assess the importance of innovation competencies which emerged from the literature review for the local situation. Next, a study was conducted on the perceived innovation competence levels of teaching staff of Kyambogo University. It appeared that these competence levels need improvement. Next, a study was conducted to look into the participation in perceived importance and effectiveness of activities for teaching staff innovation competence development. It appeared that participation in professional innovation competence development activities was limited, and that certain activities were perceived as more effective than others. An important question was why the professional development activities aimed at improving innovation competence were not taken up to a higher level. Therefore, a last study was conducted on essential human resource conditions for effective innovation competence development. The study focused on hygiene and motivation factors. This dissertation in the concluding chapter explains and emphasises the relationship between university teaching staff innovation competence domains and associated competencies, and effective university performance towards socio-economic development. Besides, universities are now seen as crucial national assets for addressing many policy priorities as well as creating and disseminating knowledge and skills aimed at improving the quality of people’s life. Subsequently, lessons drawn from the competence theory and research and the study’s general contribution, are stated. Similarly, suggestions for future research and recommendations for policy and practice, are presented.