THE INFLUENCE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS ACQUIRED BY BUSINESS EDUCATION STUDENTS ON THE ESTABLISHMENT AND MANAGEMENT OF SMALL-SCALE ENTERPRISE IN EDO STATE O

The importance of Safety cannot be overemphasized. It has also been largely discovered that accidents that occur in the workshops have been linked with the disregard tor sleety skill and competencies to be possessed and practiced by concerned individuals. This study Was carried out to analyze and assess the Safety skills and competencies required of Industrial technical education students in Nigerian Universities using the University of Benin as a case study. The design adopted for the study was the descriptive survey research design. The target population of the study comprised all 100 to 400 level students in industrial technical education in the department of vocational and technical education in the University of Benin, 2019/2020 academic session, making up a total of one hundred and thirty-five (143) students. A Sample or fifty-seven (57) students representing forty percent (40 %) of the total population was drawn and used for the study. The structured questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. Four research questions were X formulated for the study. In ensuring the validity of the research instrument, the instrument was submitted to the project supervisor who effected corrections tor further validation by two other experts before administering the questionnaire to the respondents. The corrections and suggestions were incorporated into the final draft of the instrument. The questionnaire was examined reliable using the internal consistency method, by employing Cronbach Alpha statistics. The reliability co-efficient (r) was obtained to be 0.72. Mean (X) and Standard Deviation (SD) were used to calculate and analyze the data from the questionnaire items to answer the research questions. The result of the study revealed that many safety skills are required by students in handling hand tools in the Industrial Workshop. These skills include ability to: select the right tools for the job, avoid using tools without handles, use insulated hand tools for electrical work; Give a tool to colleague through the handle etc. The result of the study also showed many safety skills that are required for operating machine tools in the Industrial Workshop. These include ability to: protect hands with gloves and wear safety shoes when operating portable tools and machines, wear approved eye protector when operating a power tool, test the power tool or machine for functionality before use, etc. The study revealed the personal protective equipment and material required by students in Industrial Technical Education which agree with Everett and Jenkins (2001) and ITF (2011) that such equipment include: Safety goggles; Fire extinguishers; Functional first aid box; Safety helmet; etc. Based on the findings of the study, some of the recommendations made include; Safety skills and competencies should be included in the curriculum of every technical course of study and at all educational levels, workshop/seminars should be regularly organized for Industrial Technical education teachers to acquaint them with the recent safety skills and competencies required by students for sate workshop practice and the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) should incorporate safety skills and competencies in the curriculum as well as in the regulatory or quality assurance programme.