Integrating e-Learning in Technical and Vocational Education: A Technical Review

Vocational and Technical Education (VTE) is one of the manpower development programmes of study that is attracting the attention of various countries around the world. This quality equally qualifies it to be seen as the only programme that tackles the menace of poverty and create employment skills. Therefore, deployment of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in teaching and learning (e-learning) of VTE courses is paramount and should be given priority. Despite the availability of studies on the use of e-learning in technical and engineering education related areas, there are quite few studies on the integration of e-learning as a tool/environment for disseminating hands-on TVE courses, which this present paper attempted to highlight. Specifically, this paper reviewed technical literature on e-learning in the context of TVE, the benefits of integrating e-learning in TVE and some challenges that could serve as a barrier toward the successful integration of e-learning in TVE. Related studies on e-learning, journal articles, opinion papers, conceptual papers, etc, were analysed to contents related to integration of e-learning in TVE or related subjects were extracted to form this paper. It was concluded that e-learning is so significant that no any TVE programme can afford to neglect, thereby recommending its full implementation in all areas of TVE and practically oriented courses.