Work Skills Needs of Technical College Graduates in Fabrication and Welding Engineering Craft Trade by the Industries in North East, Nigeria.

Abstract

The graduates’ lack of sealable skills especially in Technical Colleges trades among others, may perhaps as a result of inadequate training in skills in technical trades for smooth transition from school to the world of work. These attributes may result in low productivity and can be led to a poor economy, industrialization, starvation, unemployment and peace of the nation. Nevertheless, this research intends to establish the work skills needed by technical colleges’ graduates in Fabrication and Welding Engineering Craft Trade for working in Industries in Northeast, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The study proposed two objectives and two research questions. The target population of the study was one hundred and eighty-five (185) respondents comprising technical college teachers teaching the trade, industrial supervisors that supervises the employed graduates in industries and employed graduates working in the industries.  The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire developed by the researchers and the instrument was validated before administration. Means and Standard deviation were used to answer the research questions. The study revealed that Technical graduates working in industries are in high needs of technical (hard) and soft skills. Based on that, the study recommended among others that, technical colleges for training the graduates should be equipped with adequate training facilities and qualified fabrication and welding engineering teachers to remedy the deficiencies in hard and soft skills.