EMPLOYERS' PERCEPTIONS OF THE LEVEL OF STRENGTH OF COGNITIVE, NON-COGNITIVE AND TECHNICAL EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION GRADUATES IN THE EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS ACQUISITIONS IN COLLEGE OFEDUCATION IN NORTH-CENTRALNIGERIA

Abstract

The study assessed the extent of Employers' Perception of the Level of Strength of Cognitive, Non-Cognitive and Technical employability Skills of Agricultural Education Graduates in the Employability Skills Acquisitions in College of Education in NorthCentral, Nigeria. three objectives and three research questions guided the study with three corresponding null hypotheses formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance.The study adopted survey research design with the population of 330 respondents consisting of employers, administrators and principal officers .the subjects possessing a minimum of Masters (M.Ed/M.Sc./M.Tech.) degrees identified in the fourteen public Colleges of Education offering Agricultural Education courses in NorthCentral, Nigeria. There was no sampling since the population was manageable. The instrument used for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire titled: Employability (cognitive, non- cognitive and technical) Skills of the Agricultural Education Graduates Questionnaire (EMSAEGQ). The instrument was subjected to face and content validity by five research experts. The validated instrument was trial tested on fifty respondents and subjected to test of reliability using Cronbach Alpha (á) method which yielded reliability coefficients of 0.87. The instrument (EMSAEGQ)was administered within one week by the researcher, with the help of seven research assistants. Data collected for the study was analyzed using frequency, mean and standard deviation to answer research questions and chi-square goodness-of-fit test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance (p). The findings of the study revealed that Agricultural Education graduates cognitive, non- cognitive and technical employabilityskills; involved in the core employability skills of Agricultural Education graduates were peceived by employers; twenty methods adopted by Colleges of Education administration to ensure that graduates with cognitive, non- cognitive and technical employability skills are recriuted and twenty identified levels of constraints militating against employability skills training were percieved by the employers and amongs others.Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations were made: the National Commission for Colleges of Education should constantly review the Agricultural Education curriculum in colleges of Education to reflect courses that will teach the required skills by employers; Agricultural education graduates should be encouraged to take up employment that will enable them apply employability skills in which they show high level of strength, etc and There is need for the administrators of Colleges of Education in conjunction with the National Commission for Colleges of Education to monitor the implementation of the curriculum of Agricultural Education in order to ensure that appropriate skills content presented by this study are implemented in training students of Agricultural Education