ENHANCING SELF-EMPOWERMENT OF OFFICE TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT GRADUATING STUDENTS THROUGH SUSTAINABLE FUNDING IN POLYTECHNICS IN SOUTH WEST, NIGERIA

Abstract

Education requires adequate financial provision for successful implementation of the various programmes. Funding ensures the establishment of standard that leads to the production of graduates empowered with relevant skills and competencies. The purpose of the study was to find out if there is any significant influence of funding on self empowerment ability of Office Technology and Management graduating students in polytechnics in South West, Nigeria. Two research questions and one hypothesis were raised to guide the study.  Descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study.  A sample of 205 graduating students were used for the study from the total population of 427 HND graduating students in the Department of Office Technology and Management in six polytechnics in South West States, Nigeria. Eighty academics staff using total enumeration were also used for the study. The research instrument was a 4-point scale likert-type questionnaire.  Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the research questions while Simple Linear Regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance on SPSS package. The study revealed that there was a significant influence of funding on self empowerment attributes of graduating students (β = 0.443, p < 0.05). This implies that funding accounts for 44.3% of variance in self empowerment of OTM students.  The study concluded that funding plays a crucial role in the self empowerment attributes of graduating students of polytechnics in South West, Nigeria.  The study recommended an increase in funding by government and other education stakeholders to vocational education especially Office Technology and Management programme in order to enhance the empowerment capabilities of graduating students.