Influence of socio-economic characteristics of trainees on participation in the SPDC and NDDC skills acquisition programme

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of socio-economic characteristics of trainees on participation in the SPDC and NDDC skills acquisition programme in Bayelsa and Rivers States, Nigeria. Data were collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire administered to 271 respondents selected from 22 skill acquisition centres. Data were anslysed using desciptive and inferential statistics. It was found that there was a joint significant relationship between the entire socio-economic variables used in the model and the participation level of the trainees of SPDC and NDDC in the study area. It is recommended that the donors of both programmes SPDC and NDDC should ensure that these programmes are sustained by ensuring that more married youth and unmarried were engaged. From the report it was proved that the high level of participation of the youth contributed to the effectiveness of the programmes. Therefore more study centres with well-equipped facilities be made available for the training. The two programmes (NDDC and SPDC) must demonstrate sincerity of purpose by supplying adequate training materials, learning equipment and also conduct follow up study on their programmes’ graduates as ways of boosting the efficiency of the programmes in the future. There is need to develop effective mechanism for quality control and supervision for the programme.

Key words: development, skill acquisition centres, Niger Delta