QUALITY ASSURANCE STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE POLYTECHNICS EDUCATION: A SINE QUA NON FOR SKILLS ACQUISITION AND SELF-RELIANCE IN THE DIGITAL ERA

Abstract

The paper focuses on quality assurance strategies to enhance polytechnic education in South-South and South-East in the digital era. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. The population of the study was 614 lecturers from eight polytechnics. Two research purposes, two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. A structured questionnaire with two sections was design and used for the study. The four point likert rating scale was used to collect data from respondents. The questionnaire were face validated by three experts while the internal consistency of the instrument was determined by using Cronbach Alpha method which yielded a coefficient of 0.79. 585 copies of questionnaire were retrieved and used for the study. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the research questions while z-test was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 levels of significance. It was concluded that quality assurance strategies should be put in place for polytechnic education to progress. It was recommended among others that curriculum of polytechnics should be reviewed every 5 years to enhance the quality of education and that the quality assurance strategies identified in this study should be practiced by all polytechnics to achieve the objectives for which polytechnic institutions of learning were established.