BRICK/BLOCK LAYING AND CONCRETING SKILLS AS A VERITABLE TOOL FOR GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT AND SELF-RELIANCE OF STUDENTS IN TECHNICAL COLLEGES IN RIVERS STATE

The study explored brick/block laying and concreting skills as a veritable tool for gainful employment and self-reliance of students in Technical colleges in Rivers State. Specifically, the study sought: brick/block laying skills, concreting skills, building design skills and tiling skills as a veritable tool for gainful employment and self-reliance of students in Technical colleges in Rivers State. two objectives, research questions and hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a survey design. The population for this study comprised 45 (29 teachers and 16 Instructors) teaching bricks/blocks laying and concreting in all the four technical colleges in Rivers State. The study was a census as the entire population was studied. A structured five point Likert scale questionnaire titled “Brick/block Laying and Concreting Skills as a Veritable Tool for Gainful Employment and Self-reliance (BBLCSVTGES)” was used for the study. The instrument has the response options Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Undecided (U), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (DA). The instrument was subjected to face and content validity. “The validity of the instrument carried out by three experts in the department of Industrial Technical Education who carried out a face and content validity of the questionnaire items. The internal consistency of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient and a reliability coefficient of .76 obtained indicating that the instrument was reliable enough for the study. Findings of the study revealed that the respondents agreed on the brick/block laying skills as a
veritable tool for gainful employment and self-reliance of Instructors in Technical colleges in Rivers State. Findings of the study revealed that the respondents agreed on the concreting skills as a veritable tool for gainful employment and self-reliance of Instructors in Technical colleges in Rivers State. Findings of the study revealed that the respondents agreed on the building design skills as a veritable tool for gainful employment and self-reliance of Instructors in Technical
colleges in Rivers State. Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations were made: Technical colleges should be provided with adequate facilities and equipment in teaching brick/block laying and concreting programme as being demanded by the industry, as a remedy to the mis-match between educational output and requirements of the labour market in order to enhance the employability of students passing out of school. The federal government of the day and well-meaning Nigerians should help these young people undertake trainings to acquire relevant skills that will take them out of the streets and make them contribute meaningfully both to their families and society at large. The wide gap between the classroom and the industry should be eliminated by skills acquisition policy through the adoption of a 30:70 ratio of theory to practical. Educators should administer more practical work to complement theory in our
institutions of learning in order to provide skilled labour for the economy.