POSITIONING THE TERTIARY BUSINESS EDUCATION PROGRAMME IN NIGERIA FOR RELEVANCE IN THE GLOBAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

The continuous rise in the rate of unemployment among youths in Nigeria indicate that business education appear to have lost its relevance in the global competitive business environment. In that it has failed to equip its graduate with global competitive skills set for the 21^st century. In a bid to turn around this negative trajectory, the study sought to determine strategies for positioning the tertiary business education programme in Nigeria for relevance in the global business environment. One research question guided the study and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The population of the study comprised 780 respondents made up of 126 business educators and 654 managers of medium scale enterprises. The sample of study comprised 256 respondents. The instrument for data collection was a 16 item structured questionnaire which was developed by the researcher and structured on a 4-point rating scale. The test of reliability yielded coefficient values of 0.79 and 0.83 for the two clusters with an overall reliability co-efficient of 0.81. Data collected from the respondents were analyzed with mean, standard deviation and t-test. Finding revealed that ensuring that business education gives priority attention to professional ethics development, collaborating with industry experts on research development on novel business areas, availing students opportunities for engaging in exchange programmes abroad, reformulating the mission of business education towards developing 21^st century business managers and recruiting highly innovative lecturers with industry wide experience among others are some of the strategies for positioning the tertiary business education programme in Nigeria for relevance in the global business environment. The status and years of experience of the respondents did not influence their mean responses. Based on the finding, the researcher recommended among others that administrators of business education programme should prioritize collaboration between the programme and business experts locally and internationally in areas of research, funding, training and technologies.