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THE QUALITY
OF NIGERIAN TERTIARY INSTITUTION GRADUATES: PERCEPTION OF EMPLOYERS
ABSTRACT
The study
investigated perception of Employers of the quality of employed Nigeria
tertiary graduates in Warri metropolitan Area of Delta State. The study sample
population was made up of 120 respondents who were all heads of private or
public organisations. A total of seven (5) research questions were raised out
of which four (1) was answered and the other four (4) questions were
hypothesised. Consequently, four (4) hypotheses were raised and analysed. The
study found that: Employers of labour in both private and public sectors of the
economy in Warri metropolis of Delta State rated the performance of graduates
of tertiary education to be fairly good; the study also found that there was
there was no significant difference between observed graduates skills and
employers expectation; another finding of the study was that there was no
significant difference in graduates’ skills for male and female graduates;
there was difference the job performance of graduates trained in part-time and
full-time programmes; another finding of the study was that there was difference
in the perception of private and public employers of the quality of
graduates. Based on the data analysed
and findings of the study, the researcher concluded graduates skills were
fairly good but training may be required to meet specific organisational needs.
The researcher also concluded that males and females perform equally on their
jobs while it is upheld that graduates in part-time and full-time programmes
have differential performance on their jobs. And that because of the specific
needs of private and public organizations, their perception of tertiary
graduates differed.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background
to the study
A major
problem in Nigeria today is the unemployment of tertiary graduates. There are
thousands of students that graduate every year from various tertiary
institutions with good/honorary degrees; yet without employment. According to
the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) (2010), unemployment in Nigeria is
running at around 19.7 percent on average… and almost half of 15-24 year olds
living in urban areas are jobless. The secondary-school graduates was said to
consist of the principal fraction of the unemployed, accounting for nearly 35%
to 50%; 40% for age group within 20 to 24years and 31% for 15 to 19 years. As imperfect as this statistics may be, it’s
still does not tell a good story.
At a seminar
with the theme: Youth, Employment Creation and Shared Growth in Africa held at
the just concluded African Development Bank (AfDB’s) annual meetings in Lisbon,
Portugal, Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana,
noted that most of the things students are thought in schools today is quite
different from what is needed in the labour market.
The rate of
development in Nigeria has been on a very slow pace because of this. This slow
development has been as a result of the low rate of production. And the low
rate of production has been adduced to the incompetence of recent tertiary
graduates. Questions have arisen as to why the case is like this. Some adduced
reasons were that:
There are
three major challenges currently facing the education sector in the country
which apparently are the reason for the poor performance of the sub-sector.
These challenges include: incessant lecturers strike resulting in massive brain
drain, lack of teaching facilities in schools and poor funding.
- there are not enough vacancies to match
the large number of graduates
- graduates’ specialization do not
correspond with organizational needs in Nigeria
- the graduates are technically
incompetent/of low quality. The author
further emphasised that the president stressed the need for universities to
focus attention to courses that could make graduates, creators of jobs rather
than joining the pool of unemployed youths in the labour market, saying
"We now need graduates who are problem-solvers and job creators, and whose
characters will be enviable and unimpeachable at all times." This study is
basically concerned with the last adduced reason.
It is said
that employers complain that these graduates are poorly prepared for work. They
believe that academic standard has fallen over the past decades and that their
degrees are no longer a guarantee of communication skills or technical
competence. The essence of this project therefore is to determine if these
tertiary graduates are meeting the expectations of their employers or not.
According to Andrew et.al (2000) a large
mismatch appears to exist between university output and labor market demand.
Their
findings showed that the employment prospects of recent graduates have recently
deteriorated. This is due to the weak Nigerian economy, the policy environment
and inadequate level of skilled human resources, especially the quality of the
tertiary trained portion of the workforce. The claim is that employers are not
satisfied with the quality of graduates produced by the tertiary institutions
and that they always have to retrain them before they become useful to their
companies. So this project sets out to determine if the quality of tertiary
graduates is as low as claimed or high. This deteriorating quality perception
is supported by results from empirical research.
There is a
reported a lower rating on the "reputation" of first generation
Nigerian university graduates. They expressed a belief that the quality of
university education has fallen. Studies by several researchers show that those
who graduated in the 1980s gave more favorable ratings to questions regarding
availability of study resources than those who graduated in the 1990s. This
goes to show that study materials are lacking for the recent generation of
graduates.
Many
scholars have found that graduates of Nigerian universities rated supervised
practical work and quality of academic advice received as very poor.
A casual
interview of graduates in engineering, management and the sciences show that
only few find most of the theories they learn in schools applicable in their
daily work. In particular, graduates rated the practical aspects of their
education very poorly. If this is so, it means the school syllabus is obsolete.
The present
Nigeria graduate is a direct product of our society, a reflection of the decay
and a mirror image of the loss of morals and values. These findings illustrate
the wide gap that exists between what is taught in the universities and what
the world of work requires. Stakeholders believe thatit is the responsibility
of our educational system to provide graduates with the background and skills
necessary to be successful in their chosen fields of endeavor.
For this reason, when employers recruit
graduates, they look for graduates from institutions with curricula that use
new technology and emphasize current practices. One of the means to this end is
a serious academic research orientation among the academic staffs in Nigerian
institutions of higher learning. It is also a known fact that Nigerian public
institutions have high enrolments without enough qualified instructors.
Although
most employers are unhappy with the quality of graduates Nigerian tertiary
institutions have turned out in recent times. They are well aware of the
causes. Many employers are quick to state that the quality of these graduates
is simply a reflection of the quality of academic staff, learning resources
(libraries, laboratories, etc.) and funding limitations. A solution to the
problems of staff quality is critical to any improvement in the quality of
university graduates. The decline of staff quality is reflected in high rates
of "brain drain," the declining numbers of professors and assistant
professors within the university system and their falling levels of post-graduate
preparation. Andrew, et al. (2000) views the financial stability of the
universities as tied to the fiscal fortunes of the state.
In the last
two decades the federal budget has not been stable. It is tied closely to oil
revenues, which have been unstable. The consequences of unstable funding are
reflected in poorly-equipped laboratories, out-dated libraries, poorly-
remunerated staff, crumbling academic facilities, and low research output. And
these are the things that will build the quality of the graduates, positively
or negatively.
Statement of
Problem
The quality
of tertiary institutions’ graduates has been called to question severally by
politicians, educational stakeholders and employers of labour (who also are the
end users of the graduates’ services).
There are reports that federal government would soon establish a special
mechanism to rate each university in the country based on the quality of their
products, particularly in terms of the quality of their graduates and outputs.
Experts in the educational sub-sector have
blamed the high dependence of the industrial sector on low technical expertise
and high rate of unemployment bedeviling the nation’s economy on the inability
of Nigeria’s polytechnics and other tertiary institutions to produce the
much-required technical manpower in the sub-sector sector. The complaint is
that graduates performances are of low quality due to their low technical
competence and therefore they don’t measure up with employer’s expectations.
Many
therefore see an urgent need for institutions to be more active to their
responsibilities in terms of reaching out to industries that will meet their
requirements so that graduates from the nation’s universities and polytechnics
will be efficiently utilized by the industrial sector.
In the light
of the fore going, experts have advocated a total overhauling of Nigeria’s
education system. According to them, if success must be achieved in this
regards, it must undertake some major tasks like acquiring and adapting global
knowledge and creating knowledge locally. All these point to quality.
Similarly, by investing in human capital to boost capacity to absorb and use
knowledge and by investing in technologies to facilitate both acquisition and
the absorption of knowledge.
There is
need to find out what factors make up this quality and either affirm or negate
the complaint. Their quality depends largely on the type of training given to
them. If they are poorly trained, they will be of low quality but if given
adequate training, they will be of high quality.
Research
Questions
In order to
effectively carry out this research, the questions below were raised by the
researcher:
I. What is the perception of the
quality of tertiary graduates by employers of labour in Warri, Delta State?
II. Is there any difference between
observed graduates skills and employers expectation in Warri, Delta State?
III. Is there any difference between the
observed graduates skills and employers expectation for male and female
graduates in Warri, Delta State?
IV. Is there any difference in the
perception of employers of the quality of graduates trained in part-time and
full-time programmes in Warri, Delta State?
V. Is there any difference between
private and public employers’ observed and expected perception of the quality
of tertiary graduates by employers of labour in Warri, Delta State?
Hypotheses
Research
questions I was answered while the following hypotheses were raised to guide
research questions II –V study by the researcher:
I. There is no significant difference between
employers’ observed and expected frequency of opinion of graduates’ skills and
in Warri, Delta State.
II. There is no significant difference between
the observed graduates skills and employers expectation for male and female
graduates in Warri, Delta State.
III. There is no significant difference
in the perception of employers of the quality of graduates trained in part-time
and full-time programmes in Warri, Delta State.
IV.
There is no significant difference between private and public employers’
observed and expected perception of the quality of tertiary graduates in Warri,
Delta State.
Purpose of
Study
The
objective of this project is to ascertain if tertiary graduates are performing
well (of high quality) or really poorly prepared for the field of work (of low
quality) as claimed. This can only be done through the employers of these
graduates. There is need to see how employers rate their attitudes, initiative,
innovation, behavior and total performance on the job. In ascertaining this,
the focus will be on:
1. Determining the quality of graduates and
its effect on their performance
2. Determining if graduates’ quality meet employers
expectations.
3. Determining if tertiary trainings
corresponds with organizational needs and employers expectations.
4. Improving productivity and development in
the country.
Significance
of the Study
The
importance of this study cannot be overemphasized, seeing that it has so much
to do with the graduates who will determine the rate of development of the
country. Since Harbison (1973) said they
are the ones who constitute the ultimate basis for the wealth of the nation.
This study
is therefore concerned with determining the quality of tertiary graduates. This
can be determined by the perceptions of their employers which will help to
decide if the given training is adequate or not. After all, it is the users of a product that
can tell whether it is good or not. So the employers of these graduates who are
the users, are in a better position to tell whether they are adequately trained
or not. If they are of low quality, we will be able to determine why this is so
from their responses and proffer ways of improving them.
The findings
of this research will help to determine how correct it is to say that tertiary
graduates are either of low or high quality. If low, findings will help to
determine areas where they are low and put the institutions at alert.
Whether the quality is high or low, findings
from the suggested ways of improvement from the employers will definitely yield
novel information that will help the tertiary institutions determine ways of
improving the academic/practical quality of the institutions.
Furthermore,
findings here will help to determine how to improve the on-coming graduates.
This improvement will lead to increase in the rate of employment and
production, which will further lead to the development of the country. It
follows therefore that this study will be of help to the under graduate
students, graduated students, employers, tertiary institutions and the country
at large.
Assumptions
Some
assumptions are believed to answer the “whys” of graduates’ low employment rate
and the slow development of the country. They are:
· That tertiary graduates are not
competent in their areas of specialization because they are poorly trained and
of low quality
· That these employers are not satisfied
with the quality of graduates produced by the tertiary institutions and that
they always have to retrain them before they become useful to their companies.
· It is assumed that graduates’ skills
don’t meet employers’ expectations on the job.
· That graduates are trained in areas
that are not relevant to organizational needs.
Scope and
Delimitation of Study
The issue of
unemployment of tertiary graduates spans through the whole states in Nigeria.
And reasons have been based on their quality. This study centers on all
tertiary graduates that have been employed, to determine their quality. The
Warri axis of the Delta state region has been used for this study, to find out
the perception of employers concerning these tertiary graduates. The study is
delimited to Udu LGA, Warri South LGA and Uvwie LGA as these are the major
areas of employment in Warri. The study covers all fields of work that are
employers of tertiary graduates.
The use of
Warri for this study is to give an insight to employers’ rating of tertiary
graduates in Nigeria. Their perception will be used to determine whether the
quality of these graduates is high or low. And if it is low, determine how to
improve on it.
Definition
of Terms:
The
following terms were used in the study and were explained as used in the study
to enhance understanding of the readers.
Quality: is
the measuring of graduates’ outputs against inputs to determine effectiveness
and efficiency. It also referred to the performance Level. It is also used in
this study to mean readiness for work.
High
quality: refers to graduates who are technically competent in their areas of
specialization and are performing well with high level of performance on the
job.
Low quality:
refers to graduates who are incompetent and whose performance are below par on
the job.
Tertiary
graduates: refer to those who have completed the normal years of training for
their undertaken course in polytechnics, universities and colleges of education
respectively; and were awarded certificates to that effect; including graduates
of other forms of education higher than the secondary.
Unemployment:
refers to the absence of jobs to those who are suitable and qualified for it.
Educational
standards: pre-determined minimum requirements for the operation of educational
activities as contained in educational policies and programmes.
Place of
training: refers to the location where the graduate acquired his/her training
which could be in a rural or urban area.
Mode of
training: implies the acquisition of training through a part-time or a
full-time programme of any tertiary institution.
Urban
tertiary institutions: tertiary schools located in places very proximate or
within the state capitals of the host states.
Rural
tertiary institutions: tertiary schools located in places other than the state
capitals of the host states.
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