Assessment of Teachers’ and Principals’ Opinion on Causes of Low Enrollment of Students in Technical Colleges: A Delta State Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the causes of low enrollments in Delta State technical colleges. The population of the study is 292 comprising of 19 principals and 280 teachers from the six government technical colleges in Delta State. Purposive sampling technique was used to select all the 12 principals and random sampling technique was used to select 84 teachers. The instrument for data collection was questionnaire. The questionnaire was content and faced validated by the research supervisor. Pearson product moment correlation technique was used to ascertain the reliability of the instrument which yields 0.73. The researcher administered the questionnaire on the principals and teachers personally in the selected technical colleges. Mean and standard deviation was used to analyze the research questions while Z-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed among others that lack of qualified technical teachers, poor funding of the state technical colleges, location of the technical colleges, dilapidated infrastructural facilities,  poor societal attitude towards technical education,  and parents perception that technical education is for dull and unintelligent students. It was concluded that the factors responsible for low enrolment of students in Delta State technical colleges are governmental factors, school factors, societal factors and parental factors. Hence it was recommended among others that Government should revitalize technical vocational education institutions in Delta State.

Keyword: Technical College, Education, Vocational Education, technical Education