REPOSITIONING TECHNICAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING (TVET) AND ENTREPREUNUERSHIP EDUCATION FOR SELF-RELIANCE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

High unemployment rate amongst the youths in Nigeria has led to increased poverty and serious social problems in Nigeria. Coincidentally there has been a decline in TVET enrolments despite the juicy goals of TVET. As a result, this study was conducted to ascertain ways of repositioning TVET and Entrepreneurship education for self-reliance in Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design and was conducted in Cross River State. The population for the study was 241. 143 from the Department of Vocational Education, University of Calabar and 98 students from Cross River State University of Technology. The entire population was studied due to the manageable size of the population. A structured questionnaire containing 34 items on a four point rating scale and a response options of Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (D), and Strongly Disagree (SD) with their corresponding values of 4, 3, 2, and 1 was used to elicit responses from respondents and generate data for the study. The instrument was face-validated by three experts in the Department of Vocational Education, University of Calabar. Cronbach Alpha reliability method was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument. The reliability yielded a coefficient of 0.87 which was high enough to be used for the study. The data collected for the study was analysed using mean to answer the research questions and standard deviation to determine the closeness or otherwise of the responses from the mean. In taking decision, any item with a mean of 2.50 and above was considered accepted, while any mean score below 2.50 was taken as rejected. The findings revealed that vocational skills, job creation abilities, and product marketing skills are needed for effective repositioning of TVET and entrepreneurship education for self-reliance in Nigeria. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended amongst others, the creation of entrepreneurship development support agencies to encourage business interaction between entrepreneurs and TVET students for job creation and sustainable development in Nigeria.