Most Nigerian youths are faced with several problems such as unemployment, poverty, hunger and starvation in spite of the abundant natural and human resources in Nigeria. These unwholesome effects could be minimized when the youths are meaningfully engaged. One of the ways of engaging the youth meaningfully to minimize these unwanted situations is to ensure job creation through Technical and Vocational Education (TVE). Technical and Vocational Education (TVE) which is the form of education that is meant to prepare its recipients for employment and become economically independent, should be used to impart skill acquisition to the youths to minimize the rate of unemployment of the youths in Nigeria. Developing youths with skills would definitely improve production output, occupational diversity and standard of living. This study therefore examines the role of the TVE in relation to youth empowerment and proffers strategies for revitalization of the TVE programmes to enhance youth engagement in order to reduce unemployment, poverty, hunger and starvation of the youths in Nigeria.

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The need to revive the entrepreneurial mindset of the youths for self and economic development necessitated the study. This becomes pertinent as the level of poverty and rate of unemployment of the youths keep increasing in Nigeria, it therefore behooves on the stakeholders (parents, guardians, teachers, religious groups and government) to look inward and revive the entrepreneurial spirit of the young people so as to minimize job seekers and increase job creators in order to reduce the unemployment of the youths. This paper therefore discusses the strategies that could be used to revive, rejuvenate and reposition the entrepreneurial culture to minimize unemployment and enhance youths’ economic development for self-reliance.

The teaching and learning of building technology in technical colleges seems to be characterised by poor academic achievement and retention of concepts. This called for the search for innovative teaching approaches like the edutainment instructional approach. The study was therefore conducted to determine the effect of edutainment instructional approach on students’ academic achievement and retention in building technology in technical colleges. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted the quasi-experimental design in which there were pre-test and post-test in the experimental and control groups. The population of the study comprised all the 946 senior technical II (ST2) students offering building technology in the six public technical colleges in Akwa Ibom State. Purposive sampling technique was used to select four technical colleges in the study area. Three instrument namely: edutainment lesson plans, conventional lesson plans and building technology achievement test (BTAT) were used in the study. Three experts validated the instrument. Test-retest reliability of the instrument which yielded an index of 0.87 obtained using Pearson product moment correlation coefficient. The data collected for the study were analysed using the mean scores and standard deviation for answering the research questions while hypotheses were tested with the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. The study found that: the edutainment instructional approach enhanced students’ academic achievement and retention in building technology more than the conventional lecture method. There was significant difference in the academic achievement and retention of students in building technology between the two groups. The significance was attributed to the experimental group which obtained a higher mean score in the post-test and retention test. It was recommended that: teachers of building technology in technical colleges in Akwa Ibom State should adopt edutainment instructional approach in the teaching of building technology courses in order to enhance students’ academic achievement and retention in building technology.

The need to improve the teaching and learning of Business Studies in secondary schools necessitated this study to assess the adequacy, availability and extent of utilization of instructional materials in the teaching and learning of Business Studies in secondary schools in Anambra State. Three research questions guided the study. The population of the study comprised 305 business studies teachers from 257 public secondary schools in Anambra State. Purposive and Cluster sampling were used to select 85 Secondary schools and 120 Business Studies teachers respectively. Instruments for data collection were standardized checklist and structure questionnaire. The checklist was used by the researchers to assess the adequacy of the instructional materials used in the teaching of business studies while the structured questionnaire was used to determine the availability and extent of utilization of instructional materials in the teaching of business studies. The questionnaire was validated by five experts with a reliability coefficient of 0.86. Data collected were analysed using Frequency, Percentage, Mean and Standard Deviation. Findings from the study revealed that instructional materials required in the teaching of Business Studies in secondary schools were not adequately provided. Also, that most of the instructional materials were available but not adequate and they were lowly utilized. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that government and philanthropists should support public secondary schools and made available, adequate number of the instructional materials needed for effective teaching and learning of business studies. Key Words – assessment; adequacy; availability; utilization; instructional materials; business studies