Value Re-Engineering for Skills Acquisition and Sustainable Entrepreneurial Education in Public Senior Secondary Schools in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the extent to which value re-engineering for skills acquisition predicts sustainable entrepreneurial education in public senior secondary schools in Rivers State, Nigeria. Three research questions and three hypotheses were raised to guide the study. A correlational design was adopted. The population of the study comprised 6,917 school administrators and teachers in the 335 public senior secondary schools in Rivers State. A sample of 378 respondents was drawn from the population using Taro Yamane’s formula for minimum sample size. The instruments for data collection were researchers’ designed instruments titled “Value Reengineering for Skills Acquisition Questionnaire and Sustainable Entrepreneurial Education Scale”. The instruments contain 35-items and structured using four points rating scale. The instruments were validated by three experts. The reliability of the instrument was ascertained using Cronbach Alpha method, which yielded alpha values of 0.78, 0.82 and 0.88 respectively and overall reliability index of 0.83, while Sustainable Entrepreneurial Education Scale reliability index of 0.87. Simple regression was used to answer research questions 1 and 2, while multiple regressions was used to answer research question 2, t-test associated with simple regression was used to test hypotheses 1 and 2, while Analysis of Variance associated with multiple regressions was used to test hypothesis 3 at 0.05 alpha level. The findings of the study revealed that value reengineering for identifying skill gaps, aligning training with industry needs and the evaluation of the impact of existing skill acquisition programmes significantly predicts sustainable entrepreneurial education in public secondary schools in Rivers State, Nigeria. The study recommended that school administrators should partner with representatives from the industries to conduct an annual review of the entrepreneurship programmes to ensure it is regularly updated to reflect current industry practices and job demands.