ASSESSMENT OF EMPLOYABILITY DEVELOPMENT SKILLS OF NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOL BUSINESS STUDIES CURRICULUM

Abstract

Employability has been a thorny issue in the Nigerian education landscape. Many graduates at various school levels are faced with difficulty of securing jobs after graduating. Opinions differ as to reasons why school leavers are experiencing this hardship. Many blame the students for preparing poorly for work life, while many others lay the blame at the schools doorstep.In recent times however, attention is shifting away from the inadequacies of students and schools to issues bordering on the relevance and adequacy of curriculum contents in school. Employers of labour are looking beyond graduates with good examination results to those who can work independent of much supervision. The question is, do our subject curriculums contains skills that can make graduates work on his/her own independently? The study identified eight employability soft skills that promotes employability and assessed the level at which Business Studies curriculum promotes them. A researcher designed employability skills assessment questionnaire was administered to students and teachers of Business Studies. Both teachers and students admitted that the Business Studies curriculum contain enough content that can promote all the eight identified employability skill, they concluded that a significant relationship exist between acquiring those skills from Business Studies curriculum and getting employment after graduation from secondary school.

Key words: Soft skills. Employability, Team work skills, Problem solving skills