Improving Funding of Office Technology and Management Programme for Self-empowerment of Graduating Students of Polytechnics in South West, Nigeria

Abstract

Funding of education programmes has recently been a matter of concern to stakeholders. The purpose of the study was to determine if there is any relationship between funding and self-empowerment of Office Technology and Management graduating students in Polytechnics in South West, Nigeria. Two research questions and one hypothesis were raised to guide the study. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study. A sample of 80 academic staff and 205 graduating students were used for the study from the total population of 80 OTM academic staff and 427 HND graduating students in the department of OTM in six polytechnics in South Western States, Nigeria. The research instrument was a 4-point scale Likert-type questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the research questions, while Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to test the hypotheses at a 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed a significant relationship between funding and self-empowerment of graduating students (r-value = 0.504, p < 0.05). The study concluded that funding plays an important role in the quality of the OTM programme and the self-empowerment of graduating students of polytechnics in South Western States, Nigeria. An increase in funding to the OTM programme is recommended to increase its capacity for effective results.