The Effects of technological improvement activities, carried out by the leather ready to wear sector, on educational programmes

Ill SUMMARY One of the main issues in developing economies is that both quality of a product and the scale of production are quite low; which are mostly due to the insufficiency of the technical know-how and the capital accumulation. When the technological improvements and the means of communication are considered, the future of industry depends on the competitive power of business enterprises. Therefore, firms must catch up with the technological improvements and adjust themselves accordingly. This adjustment mechanism heavily depends on how high quality work force a firm has. In order to be able to meet work force demand and to guarantee a job for newly graduates, educational institutions should work in collaboration with bussiness enterprises for the education of young generations. As the industry has a dynamic structure, advances in industry may work as a propulsion for the educational institutions if they work in collaboration with the business enterprises. Thus, it is indispensable that educational institutions must follow closely the changes in business life and reflect those changes in their educational programmes immediately. (Doğan, 1997:82). In this research, the survey method has been made use of in order to determine the effects of technological improvement activities, carried out by the leather ready-to-wear sector, on educational programmes. In this context, polling forms has been developed for data collection. The managers of the middle scale leather ready-to-wear firms in Istanbul and the teachers lecturing on leather ready-to- wear in Female Vocational High Schools (Anadolu Kız Meslek) have been taken as sample groups for this research. The managers and the teachers have been given polling forms to fill-in and collected data have been loaded into computer by using SPSS program. Later, the calculations for frequency per cent arithmetic mean and the standart deviation were completed and the results were put in a table format. The major outcomes of this research are as in the following:. When technologically new product development process is examined, it is found out that firms do not develop a totally new or improved product, but they perform minor improvements in existing machinery.IV. When the technology innovation activities are examined, it is revealed that objectives of the firms in technology innovation activities are basically international market creation and increase in both quality and in variety of a product.. As the obstacles of technology innovation activities of the firms are focused, they can be listed as high costs, problems in regulations and standarts, lack of skilled workforce and knowledge of technology.. When the teachers are observed on following the technologically new production process and reflecting the changes in their educational programmes, it is found out that they try to follow the technologically new production process; however, they are observed that they do not participate in seminars and activities on such processes. As it has been found out that the reasons why they do not participate in such activities are that the sector is uninterested in educational institutions and the industry is not very much in collaboration with the educational institutions. The following items can be suggested according to the results of the research:. First of all, technology innovation processes should depend on strong knowledge basis which can be found in the country's its own national information system and should be based on research activities carried out by universities and public institutions, which is sponsored by the state funds. The industry should make use of the research activities either directly by co-funding the research itself or by obtaing patent or licence rights; or it should indirectly benefit from the outcomes of the research.. The qualification of the workers should be determined according to the needs of the sector and both formal and informal educational programmes should be prepared to train skilled work-force. Along with such trainings, machinery, tools, publications should be provided and consequently an environment in which the institutions may work in collaboration should be set up.. Professional standarts should be developed in parallel to the international ones for the staff who are expected to work in the sector and finally such standarts should be taken into consideration all the time.