The impact of generic skills on building technology graduates employability

Abstract

Stressing the generic skills among learners is an essential component of producing graduates who would be employable and highly competitive in the world of work situations. This study empirically examined the influence of soft skill elements on building technology graduates’ employability at technical colleges in Nigeria. The study tested six hypotheses on soft skill elements influencing building technology graduates’ employability. Data were collected through personal-administered questionnaire from 314 building technology teachers at technical colleges in the north-western States of Nigeria. The instrument was embraced from an earlier study and distributed to Building technology teachers at technical colleges in North West, Nigeria. The results revealed through Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis that ICT skills, and resource management skills have a significant positive relationship with building technology graduates’ employability while personal skills and problem-solving skills have a positive but insignificant relationship with building technology graduates’ employability at technical colleges in Nigeria. It is recommended that teachers or academicians should come out with more interactive ways to develop soft skills among students at every stage to make them become more employable hence, avert them from being unemployed in the future.