Abstract:
One of the goals of NCE business education programme is the acquisition of both physical and intellectual skills which will enable individuals to be self- reliant and useful members of the society. In spite of available business opportunities, and conducive environment for businesses to thrive in Cross River state, Business Education graduates are yet to maximize these opportunities, by using their creative abilities in establishing jobs for themselves and others instead, the business graduates go about the streets in search of jobs which are either few in supply or not available leading to high rate of unemployment, which has led to frustration and low self-esteem, and other negative vices amongst NCE graduates. It was on this note the study was conducted to determine the self-employment skills possessed by business education students of Colleges of Education for sustainable development in Cross River State. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design and was conducted in Federal College of Education Obudu and College of Education Akamkpa, Cross River State. The population for the study was 745 made up of: 425 NCE final year students of Business Education from Federal College of Education Obudu, and 320 NCE final year students of Business Education from College of Education Akamkpa. The sample of the study was 384 made up of 206 and 178 respondents from the Federal College of Education Obudu and College of Education Akamkpa respectively. A structured questionnaire containing 63 items was used to elicit responses from respondents and generate data for the study. The instrument was face-validated by three experts in the Department of Vocational Education was used to collect data from the respondents. The study made use of Cronbach Alpha reliability method Sto determine the internal consistency of the instrument. The data collected for the study was analyzed using mean to answer the research questions and standard deviation to determine the closeness or otherwise of the responses from the mean, while t -test statistic was used to test the null hypothesis of no significant difference at the probability of 0.05 level of significance at relevant degree of freedom with the use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Findings from the analysis showed that business education students of Colleges of Education in Cross River State slightly possess creative skills, information and communication skills, marketing skills and accounting skills for self employment and sustainable development. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended amongst others that Business education students should be mandated to develop a viable business plan before graduation as this would bring out their creative abilities in creating jobs for themselves in particular and the nation at large.
