Author(s): Nzei JA

Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to determine the challenges of University Clothing and Textiles programme in meeting the employment needs of Home Economics students; and ways to improve on equipping the students with the requisite skills for employment. The study is a descriptive survey. Ex-post facto research design was adopted. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The population for the study was made up of 162 final year Home Economics students offering Clothing and Textiles and 19 Clothing and Textiles lecturers in the Federal and State Universities in Southern Nigeria, comprising of South-West, South-East and South-South geopolitical zones, which gave a total of 181 persons. There was no sampling due to the manageable size. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire on a 4-point scale. Data collected were analyzed using mean (x̅) to answer the research questions, and the null hypotheses were tested using t-test at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed the challenges of Clothing and Textiles programme which among others are: inadequate modern facilities and equipment in the laboratories for training; inadequate Clothing and Textiles lecturers; inadequate teaching method; lack of staff development in terms of workshops and industrial training; insufficient periods allocated for practical lessons; insufficient industrial attachment time. The study also revealed the ways to tackle the challenges. Based on the finding, the recommendations include: Government should provide funds to adequately equip the laboratories and libraries; institutions should regularly organize workshops for lecturers and also engage them in industrial training to retrain them; schools should assign students to well equipped organizations for SIWES and extend the time; student-centred methods should be used in teaching and learning.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22271/23957476.2025.v11.i1c.1776