A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial in Ghana on Soft Skills Development for Enhanced Employability in TVET
At the Africa Evidence Summit, Richard Kwasi Boso, Kwadwo Arhin, Patricia Ampofowaa Boso, and R. Kingsford Otoo presented a J-PAL/MIT-supported pilot randomized controlled trial in Ghana examining soft-skills development for enhanced employability among Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students, implemented in partnership with the Ghana TVET system and the Association of Ghana Industries. Noting that technical training alone is insufficient and that employers consistently identify communication, teamwork, problem-solving, punctuality, and professional behaviour as weaknesses among graduates, the study compared two scalable delivery models—Workplace Experiential Learning (WEL), involving four weeks of workplace placement during the August–September 2026 vacation, and Project-Based Learning (PBL), involving four weeks of six structured school-based lessons during the June–July 2026 semester—against a control group receiving usual TVET instruction, with theoretical foundations drawn from Kolb, Dewey, Lave and Wenger, and Billett. The individual-level randomized controlled trial assigned 1,842 Year 2 students from nine technical institutes across Automotive Technology, Electrical Technology, and Fashion and Design (with girls comprising roughly 23–26% of participants) within school–programme blocks to WEL (690), PBL (577), or control (575), using KoboCollect on state-provided tablets for digital data collection and a structured 4+4+2 week delivery arrangement aligned with TVET's 12–16-week semesters, with implementation in Greater Accra, Volta, and Ashanti Regions. The study's three research questions addressed WEL's impact, PBL's impact, and their comparative effectiveness, feasibility, and scalability, with the primary outcome being a standardized soft-skills index plus employability and work-readiness measures, analyzed using ANCOVA with intent-to-treat as the primary estimand, baseline adjustment, and randomization-block fixed effects, alongside pre-specified exploratory heterogeneity analyses and robustness checks. The presenters discussed theory-of-change mechanisms (workplace exposure or project tasks leading to structured practice, feedback, reflection, and ultimately soft-skills development), implementation constraints and risks (spillovers, uneven fidelity, attrition, social-desirability bias, and digital-system failures, mitigated through separated schedules, fidelity tools, group-based data collection, confidentiality assurances, and backup power/routers), and policy implications—if WEL proves stronger, invest in employer-placement systems; if PBL is comparable at lower cost, scale school-based projects; and if effects vary by gender or trade, target delivery models accordingly. They also outlined a potential pathway from the Ghana pilot to a Ghana–Kenya comparative RCT and broader replication in Rwanda, Uganda, and South Africa, inviting Summit feedback on appropriate soft-skills measures in African TVET settings, measuring employer-linked WEL, assessing WEL fidelity in informal and semi-formal work environments, balancing internal validity with scalability, and identifying useful cost-effectiveness measures—concluding that the study aims to move beyond asserting that soft skills matter toward rigorous evidence on which delivery model works, for whom, under what conditions, and at what cost.