Engineering Careers Diploma Reality in the West Bank Technical Colleges

The aim of this study is to identify the real situation of engineering career diploma in the technical colleges of the West Bank, through identifying the issues facing all elements of education processes; teacher, student, institution and syllabus. Also to recognize the output of technical colleges through determining the required skills for graduated students, and evaluate the output from teachers, students and employers perspectives. This study covers five specializations; automotive, refrigeration, production and machinery, communication, and industrial automation, in three colleges belonging to Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) which are: Hisham Hijjawi College of Technology, Palestine Technical University (Khadoury), and College of Applied Professions. The research utilized both qualitative and quantitative research methodology. Qualitative data were collected via interviews with some teachers, students, and employers from the three technical colleges mentioned above. In addition, the quantitative data were gathered from the population which include all graduated student in 2013(n = 151), all teachers (n = 40) in the three technical colleges, and a random sample of fifty five companies works in a same specialties (n=55). The data collected via three different surveys developed to answer the research questions. We retrieved thirty nine (n=39) questionnaires from teachers, One hundred and forty five (n=145) questionnaires from students, and fifty five (n=55) from employers with a response rate of ninety seven percent (97%). Based on the research findings, some issues facing the education process appear in engineering career diploma, such as; the lack of modern laboratory equipment, the technical colleges do not geographically spread out enough, and technical colleges do not following the students after graduation. Also the results show that the employers were not enough satisfied with student skills and competences.