APPRAISAL OF TVET PARTNERSHIP FOR WORK-BASED TRAINING OF OFFICE TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT STUDENTS IN SOUTH EAST NIGERIA

Abstract

Office Technology and Management is skill based and the strong emphasis on skills informs the government policy to have TVET institutions partner with industry for skill development. Partnership of TVET institutions for work-based training of their students known as student industrial work experience scheme is the core of technical and vocational education training. This paper appraised the partnership between TVET institutions offering OTM in south east Nigeria and industries. Five (5) polytechnics offering OTM in South East Nigeria were used for the study. The population of the study was made up of 379 HND I1 students offering OTM in these five institutions. Random sampling was used to select three states out of the five states in South East Nigeria. The states selected are Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu States. The study covered all the federal and state polytechnics that offer Office Technology and Management courses in these three states. The polytechnics offering OTM in these states include; Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana, Ebonyi State; Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Anambra State; and Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu, Enugu State. The sample size of the study was 179 HND II students. The students were selected without sampling, as intact classes were used in each of the schools. A structured questionnaire was used in generating data for the study in line with the research questions. The instrument was face validated by three experts from the faculty of Vocational Technical Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.In order to determine the internal consistency, the instrument was administered to 35 OTM students of Imo State Polytechnic, Umuagwo, Imo State. A reliability coefficient of .95 was obtained using the Cronbach alpha. The data collected were analysed using mean and standard deviation. The findings of the study indicated that students agreed that the partnership of TVET institutions the industry is relevant and the content of the work based training is related to the OTM courses offered in school. The findings also showed that students find it difficult to secure a place for the industrial work-based learning because relevant industries are not willing to take in the students. The study recommended that relevant industries partnered with, should be inundated with specific number of students they must absolve for work based learning and schools should not leave the responsibility of securing placement for work-based training in the hands of the students alone.