Quality Assurance in Office Technology and Management Programmes in Polytechnics Education: A Panacea for Skill Acquisition and Self Reliance in South-South Nigeria.

Abstract

The study investigated quality assurance in Office Technology and Management program (OTM) in Polytechnics in South- South, Nigeria. Descriptive survey research was used for the study. Two purposes of study, two research questions and corresponding two null hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study consisted of one hundred and sixteen (116) lecturers; there was no sample as the entire population was investigated. Eighty six (86) copies of questionnaires were retrieved from the one hundred and sixteen copies distributed, (38 males and 49 females). Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions and t-test statistics was used to test the two null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that respondents are in agreement with the items listed for the study as the grand mean for research question 1 and 2 were rated 3.04 and 3.63 respectively, which is above 2.50, which was the boundary limit set for the study. The hypotheses tested revealed that there was no significant difference in the opinions of experienced and less experienced lecturers, on the causes of poor quality assurance mechanism and also there was no significance difference in the opinions of male and female lecturers on how to improve quality assurance programme. It was recommended among others that regulatory agencies such as NBTE saddled with supervision, accreditation and reaccreditation of polytechnics should visit institutions offering OTM programmes yearly to ascertain compliance and that qualified lecturers, instructors and technologies should be engage to ensure academic excellence.