WORK SKILLS REQUIRED FOR SELF-EMPLOYMENT OF ELECTRICAL INSTALLATION AND MAINTENANCE WORKS GRADUATES OF TECHNICAL COLLEGES IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

In the face of limited employment opportunities in Nigeria today, self-employment has emerged as a viable and often necessary path for graduates of technical college electrical installation and maintenance graduates. This study was designed to find out work skills required of these graduates for self-employment. Two research questions were formulated to guide the study. Also, two hypotheses were tested that guided the study. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was one hundred and eighty- eight (188) respondents (teachers and electricians). This was made up of twelve (12) electrical installation and maintenance works teachers in technical colleges and one hundred and fifty -seven (157) registered electricians in the Association of Building artisans/craftsmen of Nigeria. Census sampling was adopted for the study. Questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. Questionnaire was used for both the teachers and electricians. The questionnaire contains thirty (30) items. The instrument was validated by three experts and internal consistency of the instrument was established using Cronbach Alpha method and this yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.79. Data collected were analyzed using mean and t- test statistic. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was employed in the analysis of data. Based on the data analyzed, some of the findings made include that the technical college graduates require installation skills and maintenance skills. Based on the findings, recommendations were made. Some of the recommendations made include that; the curriculum of technical colleges should be reviewed and updated so as to include the identified skills, technical college teachers should be involved in regular in-service training, workshops and industry attachments to remain updated with current industry practices, and that government should provide adequate funding, modern tools, and equipment for technical colleges to enable effective skill training.