Building Students’ Personality for Employment Readiness through Soft-skills Training

A winning personality is the physical attribute of a person and is considered as his or her success in personal, academic, and professional careers. However, in the ESL context, most engineering students seem to be unaware of the need for and importance of an appealing personality for achieving success in both personal and professional careers. Although students are given a short-term training in soft-skills by their respective college or institute, engineering students seem to lack aspects of a pleasing personality which helps them in job placements and later in the work environment. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to understand and build engineering students’ personality traits such as enthusiasm, dependability, and teamwork for a successful career. For this purpose, to understand the students’ personality types, 25 engineering students were administered a pre-test based on Carl Jung and Isabel Briggs Myers’ typological approach to personality. Students were helped in building personality through the soft-skills training. The data was analyzed and interpreted both qualitatively and quantitatively. The results indicated that having a pleasing personality and exhibiting soft-skills enables in building students’ individual personality for employment readiness. Implications were offered to students, placement trainers, and teachers. It is concluded that having a charming personality will support students in landing their desired jobs.

EMPLOYMENT READINESS AND STUDENT TEACHING PERFORMANCE OF COED SENIORS

The study was conducted at the Eastern Samar State University Main Campus during the second semester of the school year 2018 to 2019. It aimed to determine the employment readiness of the respondents in terms of their personal skills; instructional skills; and management skills. It also intended to describe their student teaching performance in terms of their average grade in Student Teaching in the Elem/Sec Schools subject; and to determine whether there is significant relationship between these variables.. Likert-type questionnaire was used to gather data as well as secondary data and employed both Descriptive and Inferential statistics for the analysis of the gathered data.. The findings of the study revealed that the respondents’ employment readiness were interpreted as “Much Skilled”. It also reflected that 95.6% or majority of the senior students were excellent in their teaching performance. Further results reflected that there was no significant relationship between employment readiness in terms of personality skills and instructional skills components of the respondents and their student teaching performance but a significant relationship between employment readiness of the respondents in terms of management skills and their student teaching performance. The results of the study implied that COED senior students are ready for employment and that they have developed the necessary skills for teaching and can excellently practice the techniques , skills, and positive attitudes in teaching in preparation for the real world of teaching profession as reflected in their student teaching performance. These findings also implies that student teachers’ skills in managing classroom activities, efficient planning and organizing can highly influence their outlook and preparedness towards the teaching profession .Hence, student teaching curriculum must be enhanced towards improving the management skills of students.

Assessing Instructional Resources and Students' Self-Employment Readiness through Marketing Trade Subject in Lagos State, Nigeria

The challenges of youth unemployment and the need for a viable vocational and entrepreneurship education necessitated the introduction of trade/entrepreneurship subjects at senior secondary schools in Nigeria. Therefore, this study aimed at assessing the availability and functionality of the recommended instructional resources and the self-employment readiness of students of Marketing Trade subject. The study answered three research questions and tested one research hypothesis. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study comprised 1367 students and teachers of Marketing Trade subject in the selected public senior secondary schools in Education District IV of Lagos State, Nigeria. The sample of the study comprised 308 students and 9 available teachers of Marketing Trade subject randomly and purposively selected respectively from the population. The research instrument used was structured questionnaire. The Cronbach Alpha correlation coefficient used to determine the internal consistency of the research instrument yielded an average index of 0.88. The research questions and hypothesis data were analysed using bar-charts, mean, standard deviation and Pearson Product Moment of Correction statistical tools as appropriate. The findings show the recommended instructional resources were not adequately available and functioning in schools, and as a result, students lacked the self-efficacy and competences for self-employment readiness as marketers and entrepreneurs. It was therefore recommended that Government and other stakeholders should collaborate to provide necessary and adequate funding and instructional resources for the effective implementation of Marketing Trade subject in Nigeria.