You have no items in your shopping cart.
ABSTRACT
The study investigated the relationship between higher education and graduates participation in Nigeria labour market. The need to address the concern of stakeholders over youth unemployment in Nigeria necessitated the study. To guide the study, nine research questions were raised and four hypotheses formulatedand tested at 0.05 level of significance.
The study adopted a descriptive survey of correlational research design. The population of all the thirty-nine thousand, two hundred and forty-three (39,243) full-time undergraduates of the fifteen (15) faculties that make up the University of Benin. The sample of the study consisted of three hundred (300) selected through multi-stage sampling procedure. The instrument used was a questionnaire designed by the researcher titled: Higher Education and Graduates Participation in Labour Market Questionnaire (HEGPLMQ). The instruments were validated by the researcher’s supervisor in the Department of Educational Foundations and two other experts in Measurement and Evaluation in the Department of Educational Evaluation and Counseling Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Benin. The Cronbach Alpha statistics was used to establish the reliability of the instruments, the r-value of 0.77 was obtained. Data were analyzed with mean, standard deviation Pearson r and Fisher z statistics.
The findings of the study based on the questions raised and hypotheses tested revealed among others that There was a low level of the implementation of higher education goals in Nigerian Universities; high level of graduate unemployment in Nigeria and high level of graduate participation in the Nigerian labour market. Also there was no significant relationship between higher education curriculum implementation and level of graduate participation in the labour market. However, there was a significant influence of higher education on acquisition of creative skills needed by students and post-graduate job creation. It was therefore recommended among others that the Government and relevant authorities should ensure to do the needful in terms of providing necessary resources in Nigeria higher institutions so as to curb the low level of implementation of higher education goals in Nigeria Universities as revealed from the findings and there should be corroboration between educational policy makers and employer of labour to reduce or review the mismatch between university graduate turnout and graduate employment in the labour market.
