EVALUATION OF MARKETING SKILLS NEEDED BY BUSINESS EDUCATION STUDENTS FOR SELF-EMPLOYMENT IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION, KANO STATE

Abstract

The study evaluates the Marketing skill needed by business education students for selfemployment in colleges of education in Kano State. Two specific research objectives and questions guided the study. The population for the study was all 913 final-year business education students across the three colleges of education that were used for the study. The sample size for the study was 256 respondents. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. A structured, 19 items four-point rating scale questionnaire was used for the data collection. The instrument was pilot tested and it gave rise to a reliability coefficient of 0.95 which was determined using the Cronbach Alpha ( ) coefficient. The collected data were analyzed using percentage scores for the personal data of the respondents and mean scores with the benchmark of 2.50 and above for agreeing or disagreeing with the questionnaire items and the grand mean. The study revealed that skills for identifying customer needs and wants, product development skills, and branding skills among others were identified as the marketing skills needed by business education students for self-employment. On the other hand, inadequate funding of the programme, mismanagement of funds, and inadequacy of teaching and learning materials among others were identified as the constraints that hinder the effective acquisition of the marketing skills that are needed by business education students for selfemployment. The study concluded that if society wanted to reduce the current level of employment, emphasis should be laid on the acquisition of marketing skills and termination of the hindrances to their effective acquisition. Finally, the study among others recommended that teaching and learning business education courses should be more practical based as this will help to improve the student's creativity.