Milling Machine Operational Skills Required by Metalwork Facilitators for Effective Production of Ready-To-Work Graduates in Tertiary Institutions in Rivers State, Nigeria

The study investigated milling machine operational skills required by metalwork facilitators for effective production of ready-to-work graduates in tertiary institutions in Rivers state. The study adopted descriptive survey design. The population of the study was 174 respondents which comprised 67 metalwork facilitators (43 lecturers and 24 instructors) and 107 final year students of Metalwork/Mechanical Technology department. No sampling was done as the population was manageable; therefore, census technique was adopted. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated. A survey questionnaire was developed to elicit responses from the respondents. The instrument was validated by two experts in the Department of Vocational and Technology Education, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt. The reliability of the instrument was established using Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficient which yielded a reliability index of .84. Statistical Mean was used to answer the research questions while standard deviation was used to determine the homogeneity in the responses of the respondent and z-test was used to test the null hypothesis at .05 significance level. The study found among others that skills prepare metalwork facilitators to contribute meaningfully to their area of specialty, help individuals to be outstanding, and prepare graduates to be ready-to-work. It was recommended that from time to time, there should be on-the-job training for all the skills facilitators in metalwork technology on the operation of the various machines in the workshop to enable them contribute meaningfully to student’s skills acquisition in the area of study; accuracy in machine operation should also be enacted as criteria for metalwork facilitators promotions, to effectively produce ready-to-work metalwork graduates in tertiary institutions in Rivers state.