UP-SKILLING AND RE-SKILLING INDUSTRIAL WORKFORCE VIA SCHOOL-INDUSTRY RELATIONS FOR EFFECTIVE WORK PREPARATION OF STUDENTS IN TECHNICAL INSTITUTIONS IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

The study determined up-skilling and re-skilling industrial workforce via school-industry relations for effective work preparation of Students in Technical Institutions in Rivers State. Four purposes, research questions and hypotheses guided the study. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was 570 respondents, comprising 70 TVET Lecturers and 500 level 3 and 4 students in the three Tertiary Institutions in Rivers State. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled “Up-skilling and Re-skilling Industrial Workforce via School-Industry Relations Questionnaire” (URIWSIRQ). The instrument was structured on five-point Likert type rating scale. The instrument was subjected to face-validation by three experts. The internal consistency of the instrument was established using trial testing method with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS); this gave a reliability coefficient of 0.77. Data collected from the respondents were analyzed using Mean and Standard deviation to answer the research questions and t-test statistics were used to test the five null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The decision for hypothesis was; if the calculated value of t (t-cal) is less than or equal to the critical value of (t-critical), accept the null hypothesis, otherwise reject null hypothesis. The computation of the mean, standard deviation and t-test was carried out with SPSS. The findings of the study showed that the respondents agreed to a high extent up-skilling and re-skilling industrial workforce be achieved Via 60+40 training system, school-industry administrative links and Industry-based activities for effective work preparation of Students in Technical Institutions in Rivers State. Recommendations were made: Industry-base-job skill should be included in the curriculum of technical colleges for skill acquisition. Technical teachers/instructors should visit industrial enterprises to familiarize themselves with the current technologies, sharing of facilities between technical institutions should be encouraged