SOFT SKILLS NEEDED BY ACCOUNTING EDUCATION STUDENTS IN UNIVERSITIES FOR EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE AFTER GRADUATION IN ENUGU STATE.

This work was carried out to determine the soft skills needed by Accounting Education students in Universities for effective Performance after graduation in Enugu state. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested. The population for the study comprised 68 Entrepreneurship lecturers from Enugu state University of Science and Technology. The instrument was a-20 item structured questionnaire developed by the researcher entitled: Soft skills needed by Accounting Education Students Questionnaire (SSNBAESQ). The instrument was duly validated by three experts. The reliability was done using Cronbach Alpha, which yielded coefficient of 0.71, indicating that the instrument was reliable. The two research questions was answered using mean with standard deviation; while the null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance using t-test at appropriate degree of freedom. Results of data analysis relating to the study have shown that emotional intelligence and teamwork skills respectively are needed by Accounting Education students in universities for effective Performance in universities for effective Performance after graduation in Enugu state. The null hypotheses tested showed that, there was no significant difference in the mean scores of male and female Entrepreneurship lecturers in ESUT on emotional intelligence and teamwork skills respectively. Based on the findings, it was recommended that, Accounting Education students should be exposed to various emotional Intelligence skills. Again, Accounting Education lectures should impact useful teamwork skills to her students using required strategies