ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS POSSESSED BY AUTO TECHNOLOGY SELF EMPLOYED GRADUATES IN NASARAWA STATE

The study was designed to determine the skills possessed by auto technology self employed graduates in Nasarawa state. Survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study was 110 respondents comprises of 30 auto technology entrepreneurs and auto technology employees. There was no sampling because of manageable size of the population. A structured questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. The instrument was trial-tested on 15 respondents who were not part of the population used for the study after being subjected to face validation by three 3 experts from the department of vocational teacher education, university of Nigeria, Nsukka. Cronbach Alpha reliability method was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument and 0.984 reliability coefficient value was obtained. Five research questions and five null hypotheses were formulated for the study. Mean was used to analyze the data for research questions while t-test was used to test the hypotheses of no significant difference at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed 36 technical skills, 16 managerial skills, 11 financial management skills, 21 marketing skills and 16 communication skills possessed by graduates of auto technology for self-employment in Nasarawa state. There was no significant difference in the mean responses of auto technology entrepreneurs and auto technology employees on the skills possessed by auto technology self employed graduates for entrepreneurial ventures. The study recommended that all the skills identified in this study should be packaged and uses to retain the graduates of auto technology as prospective entrepreneurs in the country. It was also recommended that the entrepreneurial skills identified should be introduced as one of the compulsory subjects in all secondary schools in the country. Through this methods students who transcend into technical institutions to the university level, would have become conversant with the tenets of entrepreneurial demand.