ASSESSMENT OF THE EXTENT OF ATTAINMENT OF BENCHMARK MINIMUM ACADEMIC STANDARDS (BMAS) FOR INDUSTRIAL TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTHEAST, NIGERIA.

ABSTRACT

 The Benchmark Minimum Academic Standard (BMAS) is an instrument of accreditation developed by the National Universities Commission (NUC) for measuring standard for all programmes taught in Nigerian universities. This study therefore, was designed to find out the extent of attainment of Benchmark Minimum Academic Standard (BMAS) for industrial technical education in Federal and State universities in Southeast of Nigeria.Seven (7) research questions and three (3) null hypotheses guided the study.The descriptive survey research design was employed in the study.The population of the study comprised the 65 academic staff in the department of industrial technical education in Federal and State universities in Southeast of Nigeria and this was used as the sample of the study. Three instruments; Pro-forma, Checklist and research structured Questionnaire’ titled BMAS and teacher education questionnaire (BTEQ) were used, they were developed by the researcher and were used for data collection for this study. The instruments were face-validated by three experts. Data collected were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, ratios, Mean and standard deviations in order to enable the researcher answer the research questions. T-test was used to test the formulated null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result revealed that Non-academic staff were completely not available in some positions and available but inadequate in some positions in both federal and state universities. Also, the academic staff-mix(academic staff distribution) in accordance with BMAS for industrial technical education in federal and state universities in Southeast of Nigeria shows inadequacy of academic staff. Furthermore, finding revealed thatthe attainment of admission requirements for industrial technical education by federal and State universities in Southeast of Nigeria do not differ significantly. The findings also revealed that the hindering factors to the attainment of BMAS for industrial technical education as perceived by lecturers in federal and State universities in Southeast of Nigeria do not differ significantly. In addition, it was revealed that the strategies for enhancing the attainment of BMAS for industrial technical education as perceived by lecturers in federal and State universities in Southeast of Nigeria do not differ significantly. Based on the findings and conclusions, it was recommended among others that: the Federal and State governments should make substantive budget allocations to education especially at the university level in order to ensure adequate provision of physical facilities, employment of academic and non-academic staff, and other resources for the attainment of BMAS for education programmes in Nigerian universities especially in the Southeast. The management of the universities should create ways of generating funds internally and also come up with effective strategies in order to address the hindering factors to the attainment of BMAS education programmes.