AWARENESS, PERCEPTION AND ATTITUDE OF GRADUATING STUDENTS OF NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES TOWARD CHALLENGES OF YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
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Date
2018
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Abstract
Graduate unemployment is a global challenge. It began to manifest in Nigeria in the late 70’s becoming seemingly uncontrollable and posing a serious concern to all stakeholders. Most students graduate with very high expectations for a comfortable life anchored on viable and well paying jobs. But these expectations soon give way to frustrations, confusion and hopelessness when later they encounter, face-to-face the realities of the challenges of securing gainful employment. Could this be an indication that most graduating students were not anticipating these challenges? This study therefore examined the awareness, perception and attitude of graduating students of Nigerian universities toward the challenges of youth unemployment. The objectives of this study were to find out: (i) the awareness level, (ii) perception (iii) attitude of graduating students of Nigerian universities toward the challenges of youth unemployment, and (iv) the influence of gender, age, and course of study on these variables.
Descriptive survey design was adopted for this study. The population of the study comprised all graduating students of universities in Nigeria, estimated at about 1.8 million. The target population was drawn from public universities comprising 40 federal and 44 state universities spread across the six geo-political zones of the country. Multistage sampling procedure involving; simple random, purposive and stratified sampling techniques were used to select a total of 1,582 respondents made up of 853 males and 750 females for the study. A researcher - developed instrument was used for the study. The instrument was content validated by five experts. The instrument was subjected to a test re-test reliability technique using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation formula which yielded a coefficient of 0.78. Percentage, t-test and Analysis of Variance statistics were used for the data analysis.
The findings of the study were that:
i. the respondents had high awareness level of the challenges of youth unemployment with a value of 97.5 percent;
ii. the respondents’ perception of the challenges of youth unemployment was negative with a value of 94.7. percent;
iii. the respondents’ attitude toward the challenges of youth unemployment was negative with a value of 87.7 percent; and
iv. there was no significant difference in the awareness level, perception and attitude of respondents toward the challenges of youth unemployment on the basis of gender, age, and course of study.
The study concluded that the challenges of youth unemployment were obvious to the graduating students because their perception and attitude towards the challenges were negative. There is therefore need for improvement in their perception and attitude toward the challenges. The implication is that the graduating students need counselling to change their perception and attitude toward youth unemployment. It was recommended that counselling restructuring techniques should be used to sensitise students on these challenges.
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AWARENESS, PERCEPTION, ATTITUDE, GRADUATING STUDENTS, NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES, YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT