ABSTRACT: This study examined business education teaching strategies as a correlate of unemployment mitigation among business education students in Delta State Tertiary institutions. The business education strategies considered in this study were practical skills acquisition strategies, ICT-based instructional strategies and entrepreneurial training strategies while the under-unemployment mitigation variables were, employability skills, entrepreneurial intention and rate of self/hired employment were examined. Seven research questions were raised and answered, while four null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. The population of the study was 1028 business education students and graduates. The stratified sampling technique and purposive sampling techniques were adopted and the sample size was 397. A structured questionnaire was used and was validated by three experts. The overall Chronbach’s Alpha value obtained for the instrument showed a reliability coefficient of 0.74. Data collected from the respondents were analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Coefficient (PPMC) and Multivariate Linear Regression Analysis. The findings of the study revealed that there was a very highly positive correlation between practical skills acquisition strategies and employability skills of business education students in Delta State tertiary institutions. Also, the study indicated that components of business education strategies mitigate unemployment among business education graduates in Delta State among others. It was concluded that the most significant components that mitigate unemployment are practical skills acquisition and entrepreneurship training strategies. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that stakeholders of business education programme should ensure that the students are properly engaged in practical training as it will boost their practical skills acquisition and invariably boost their employability skills which in turn will help to mitigate unemployment. The study has empirically established that, practical skills acquisition strategies is very highly correlated to employability skills of Business Education students in Delta state tertiary institutions.
Oghenekomeno et al. (Fri,) studied this question.