CAREER OPPORTUNITIES AS DETERMINANT OF ADULT EDUCATION AS A CHOICE OF STUDY AMONG UNDERGRADUATES IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The thought of people and most especially students of higher learning is that adult education as a course is meant to teach people who are typically adults in a contemporary situation with grey hairs, old, weak and would soon wither away. To this set of people, such a course of study is not meant for new generation. The paper was therefore set to establish how career opportunity affects the choice of AE as a University course. The study used the survey design method. A total of 288 students from the Department of Continuing Education and Community Development, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai picked through Multi-stage sampling technique were used for the study. Stone and Pellowski (2016) career decision model was adapted to determine students' decision to study AE through questionnaire titled “Carrier Opportunities of Adult Education as a University Course” (COAEUC) supplemented with Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Descriptive and inferential statistics at 0.05 alpha level were used to analyse the data. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents in the Department used for the study 226 students (78.5%) did not pick Adult Education as their chosen course. Also, majority of the students never believed there were any carrier opportunities in offering the course except to teach in a formal education setting. About 96 (33%) respondents would want to continue the course to postgraduate level. There was a significant difference in the interest to continues and finish the course at the undergraduate level between those that were admitted with O' Level and Direct Entry results. It was recommended that the University need to revisit the nomenclature of the Department to reflect that the course is not meant to train students in teaching adults alone. It was also recommended that regular orientation for students and lecturers should be encouraged through Personality Lecture Series from those that have excelled in the field.