COMPETENCY LEVEL OF FRESH GRADUATES OF NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES IN EMPLOYMENT SURVIVAL SKILLS
Abstract
Graduates of Nigerian universities are expected to acquire competency in survival skills that will see them through working life. In these days of world economic meld down, it has become imperative that graduates should possess adequate competency in survival skills to enhance their employability in the world of work. In Nigeria at present, there is high graduate unemployment rate and so fresh graduates would gladly make do with any job opportunities that come their way. To cope with such jobs, the fresh graduate needs to possess some level of competency in employment survival skills. However, there is also growing concern among the populace and especially among prospective employers of labour that the fresh graduate of Nigerian universities is not adequately prepared for the challenges of employment. The paper therefore, investigates the competency level of fresh graduates of Nigerian universities in employment survival skills.Survey design of the ex-post facto type was adopted. The questionnaire instrument was used for data collection and contains largely survival skills question. Simple random sampling technique was adopted to select 200 fresh graduates out of a population of about 2,000 fresh graduates of Nigerian universities at the National Youth Service Corps orientation camp in Ogun State in April, 2014. The participants are graduates from universities across the country. Four research questions were answered in the study using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The result shows that 140 (70%) possessed high competency level in survival skills, 49 (24.5%) possessed medium competency level in survival skills while 11 (4.5%) possessed low
competency level in survival skills. There was no significant difference in level of competency in survival skills possessed according to gender. Competency level of fresh graduates in survival skill with science background was significantly higher than those of graduates from non-science based disciplines. The result also showed that the fresh graduates from universities in South-East and South-South geopolitical zones of Nigeria possessed higher competency in survival skills than their counterparts in the other geopolitical zones. The paper concludes that fresh graduates of Nigerian universities generally possess sufficient survival skills for employment.
Key words: competency level; Fresh graduates of Nigerian universities; Employment survival
skills,
NKECHI ETHY EDITH NWALO (2015)
COMPETENCY LEVEL OF FRESH GRADUATES OF NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES IN EMPLOYMENT SURVIVAL SKILLS
Abstract Graduates of Nigerian universities are expected to acquire competency in survival skills that will see them through working life. In these days of world economic meld down, it has become imperative that graduates should possess adequate competency in survival skills to enhance their employability in the world of work. In Nigeria at present, there is high graduate unemployment rate and so fresh graduates would gladly make do with any job opportunities that come their way. To cope with such jobs, the fresh graduate needs to possess some level of competency in employment survival skills. However, there is also growing concern among the populace and especially among prospective employers of labour that the fresh graduate of Nigerian universities is not adequately prepared for the challenges of employment. The paper therefore, investigates the competency level of fresh graduates of Nigerian universities in employment survival skills.Survey design of the ex-post facto type was adopted. The questionnaire instrument was used for data collection and contains largely survival skills question. Simple random sampling technique was adopted to select 200 fresh graduates out of a population of about 2,000 fresh graduates of Nigerian universities at the National Youth Service Corps orientation camp in Ogun State in April, 2014. The participants are graduates from universities across the country. Four research questions were answered in the study using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The result shows that 140 (70%) possessed high competency level in survival skills, 49 (24.5%) possessed medium competency level in survival skills while 11 (4.5%) possessed low competency level in survival skills. There was no significant difference in level of competency in survival skills possessed according to gender. Competency level of fresh graduates in survival skill with science background was significantly higher than those of graduates from non-science based disciplines. The result also showed that the fresh graduates from universities in South-East and South-South geopolitical zones of Nigeria possessed higher competency in survival skills than their counterparts in the other geopolitical zones. The paper concludes that fresh graduates of Nigerian universities generally possess sufficient survival skills for employment. Key words: competency level; Fresh graduates of Nigerian universities; Employment survival skills,