A Comprehensive, Competency-Based Education Framework Using Medium Sized ERP Systems

1. INTRODUCTION The decline in the number of personnel with the required Information Communication Technology (ICT) skill sets over the past few years is of major concern (Cameron, 2008; Cohen, 2012; ITWeb, 2011). The forecast in South Africa for 2012 indicates a continued demand for ICT skills that would exceed the supply by more than 20% (ITWeb, 2011). One aspect of the ICT skills debate currently focuses on the misalignment or gap between ICT competencies provided by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the graduate skills required by industry (Cohen, 2012; Harris, 2011; ITNews, 2012; ITWeb, 2011). The misalignment of competencies in ICT is also evident in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems which have become dominant in all types of organisations worldwide (Mohamed & McLaren, 2009) and for which a substantial future growth has been predicted (Forrester, 2011). This dominance of ERP systems has led to a need for ERP specialists and to difficulties with recruiting graduates with the appropriate competencies globally (Mohamed & McLaren, 2009) and in South Africa (Scholtz, Calitz & Cilliers, 2011). As a result pressure has been placed on HEIs to include ERP education as an important part of the Information Systems (IS) curriculum (Ask, et al., 2008; Boyle, 2007; Kreie, Shannon, & Mora-Monge, 2010). A number of HEIs in South Africa have implemented ERP systems into their curriculum but the incorporation of technical competencies of ERP systems into IS curricula has been slow (Boyle, 2007) and this has increased the gap between the competencies required by industry and the content of ERP education programmes (Boyle, 2007; Mohamed & McLaren, 2009). This gap between industry requirements and graduate competencies has led to a need for addressing how well ERP education programmes of HEIs meet the requirements of organisations (Boyle, 2007; Jensen, et al., 2005). This gap can be reduced by introducing a competency-based curriculum where designers of ERP curricula must first identify the key competencies expected from ERP specialists (Jensen et al., 2005). Competencies can also be developed by preparing students for their careers and exposing them to the various ERP systems available on the market (Peters & Haak, 2010; Winkelmann & Leyh, 2010). It is necessary therefore for HEIs to adopt one or more appropriate ERP systems into the curriculum. Studies of the adoption of ERP systems in the curriculum have shown that students enjoy performing exercises using the ERP system, that they are able to gain a better understanding of the various business processes and how they relate to each other and they also gain a better understanding of ERP concepts (Seethamraju, 2007; Surendran, Somarajan, & Holsing, 2006; Wang, El-Masry, & Zhang, 2009; Winkelmann & Leyh, 2010). Surendran et al. (2006) reported that students valued getting exposure to an ERP product that has a high market share. It has also been shown that IS graduates who have hands-on experience of ERP systems will have a stronger and more desirable set of work skills and are viewed favourably by industry (Kreie et al., 2010; Scholtz, et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2009). Educators are thus faced with the challenge of meeting the needs of industry in providing graduates with industry-relevant competencies (Jensen et al., 2005; Peters & Haak, 2010; Scholtz, et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2009) and still incorporate abstract, formal, conceptual knowledge in accordance with the aims of higher education (Surendran et al., 2006). Despite the many potential benefits of ERP system adoption, step-by-step ERP exercises are not always adequate to convey to students the business process concepts embedded in ERP systems (Rienzo & Han, 2010), and students do not always understand why tasks are performed (Wang et al., 2009). Students often get lost in the details of how to perform processing transactions using large ERP systems such as SAP R/3 (Leger, et al. …