ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS IMPROVEMENT NEED OF SECONDARY SCHOOL LEAVERS IN FLORICULTURE FOR MITIGATING CLIMATE CHANGE IN DELTA AND EDO STATES, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigates entrepreneurial skills improvement needs of secondary school leavers in floriculture for mitigating climate change in Delta and Edo States of Nigeria. The study adopted survey research design. Two objectives,two research questions and one hypothesis were formulated to guide the study. The population of the study was (10,300) made up (103) extension agents across the two states and (10,197) secondary school leavers in Delta and Edo States of Nigeria. The sample size for the study is (3,85). The sample was drawn using the Taro Yamen’s approach to determine the sample size. The sample comprises of one hundred and three (103) extension agents,(94) secondary school leavers from Delta State and (188) secondary school leavers from Edo State. Proportionate Stratified random sampling technique in the ratio of 1:2 (Delta and Edo) was used to arrive at (94) respondents from Delta State and(188) respondents from Edo State. There was no sampling for extension agents because the population was enough to be managed by the researcher. The instrument for data collection was the questionnaire titled: Entrepreneurial Skills Improvement Needs in Floriculture Questionnaire (ESINlIFQ) was developed from literature reviewed. The instruments were face and content validated by three experts from Joseph SarwaunTarka University, Makurdi. To ensure the reliability of the instruments, a trial testing was conducted on 20 respondents in (Cross River State, Nigeria. Cronbach Alpha method was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument which gave a reliability coefficient of 0.78 and 0.77 for need and performance respectively. 385 copies of the questionnaire were administered to the respondents (secondary school leavers) and extension agents in Delta and Edo States and were retrieved for data analysis. Need gap analysis (NGA) was used to answer research questions while t-test was used to test the null hypothesis at .05 level of significance.Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that Secondary School Leavers in Delta and Edo Nigeria Need entrepreneurial skills improvement needs management of floriculture in the area. Based on the findings of the study it was therefore recommended that management skills that need improvement should be included in secondary school curriculum to enable the students acquired the skills/knowledge before graduation.