INDUSTRIAL REQUIREMENT AND BUSINESS EDUCATION CURRICULUM AS CORRELATE FOR EMPLOYMENT OF BUSINESS EDUCATION GRADUATES IN NORTH-EAST, NIGERIA

This study aimed at investigating the correlation between industrial requirement and business education curriculum for employment of business education graduates in north-east, Nigeria. To achieve this, the study used three objectives, three research questions and three hypotheses. The population of the study 276 respondents, out of this number, 60 were business education lecturers and 216 were postgraduate students from three Federal Institution in the North-east, Nigeria. These institutions were Modibbo Adama University, Yola, University of Maiduguri and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University respectively. The study used the entire population as sample. This is because of the relatively small numbers of respondent involve in the study. Descriptive survey was used as a designed. While Structured Questionnaire were used as an instrument for data collection. The questionnaire was structured into two sections. Section A was used to illicit information on the bio data of the responded whereas the section B was used to illicit information on the questionnaire items of the study. The instruments were validated by two experts whom were not below the rank of a senior lecturer from the Department of Vocational Education. The collected data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation were used for answering the research questions, while inferential statistics of a linear regression analysis was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. All those hypotheses with a P-value of less than the Alpha value at 0.05 level of significance, were rejected. While those hypotheses with p-value above 0.05 level of significance were retained. The findings of the study revealed that industrial requirement and business education curriculum had a positive relationship with an employment opportunity of business education graduates in north-east, Nigeria. The study recommended that, University administration should emphasize more on students’ skills acquisition as this was found to be a requirement for the industrial employment opportunities for business education graduates. Equipping the students with skills is tantamount to given them an industrial job.