CO-OPERATIVE EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN NIGERIA (A CASE STUDY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CO-OPERATIVE ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT (CEM), INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY (IMT) ENUGU

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The planning of the establishment of Institute of Management and Technology Enugu, there not in progressive forms till 1967 to a college of technology up to the ordinary diploma level.

An institution of administration which provide short come in-service training courses for civil servants of various grades and a co-operative college offered a certificate course in co-operative studies to co-operative inspector from the ministry of industry, trade and co-operative.

These institutions were separated and separately located. The college of technology was part of the ministry of Education and was controlled and directed by that ministry, similarly, the institute of administration was controlled by the ministry of establishment, while the co-operative college was directly under the ministry of rural development.

All the staff of these institutions were civil servants, they were posted and re-posted from one department to another according to their needs or civil services.

However, after 1970, they arose the need for higher institution of learning to up grade the training in the technological and managerial fields which there were severe need for manpower development. The future graduates in the technology and management and allied field would be more effective by functional training than the institute of administrations.

To the founding father, the main purpose became the maximization of the management efficiency, professional and technical expertise and also the acquisition of the additional tools for these.

The close coupling of the management and technology in the new objectives was the needless to say and not the fruitful. The management and technology of then needs training for the satisfaction and fulfillment of itself, and in the world it applied science entails more problems of both moral and ecological significance. Later, they can no longer afford to be the narrow minded professional concerned with only machine and structure. He must understand the relationship and social setting of his position with his industrial environment. He must work with other people, be acquainted with the basic personnel and labour matters. This was as a result of these idea of an autonomous, IMT was conceived.

In the process of performing these, the executive council of the state agreed to merge the former college of teaching, the institute of the administration and up grade their functions in 1971. Both the institute and college were in same under unified control of the cabinet office on 1^st April 1972. In October of the same year, a provisional council for the purpose of a new institute was appointed by the administrator of then east central state, the council who was in charge with the responsibility of determining the recommendations to the government to appropriate structure of an autonomous institution that would produce the high quality of technologists and technicians. The council pursued this task with vigour and determination and in early April 1973, they submitted its findings. On 31^st May 1973, an Edict No. 10 titled the “Institution of Management and Technology Edict 1973” was promulgated. The edict took effect from 1^st July 1973, and thus gave birth to Institute of Management and Technology while its first chairman was Dr. Ukwu.

In October, the institute opened its doors to students and they admitted 550 student in addition to 300 second year students to of 850 students. At the time of opening, their were only 20 senior staff including the Rector, Registrar, Academic staff and four ( 4) Administrative staff. The institute started with eleven departments grouped into three (3) divisions.

The first convocation of the institute was held on 16^th October 1976 and about 900 graduates received their Diplomas and Higher Diplomas.

1.2 Historical Background of the Study.

The department of co-operative studies was established as a separate department in the Institute of Management and technology, Enugu in January 1978.

Before then, co-operative studies was but one among the academic programmes within the department of business management and public Administration which had other programmes like Accounting, Marketing, etc. and was first handed by Dr. S. Umoh.

In fact, IMT was the first institute of higher learning in Nigeria to start a programme in co-operative studies for many years. It had only one full time lecturer named Dr. Enyeribe Onuoha, who after a Ph.D in sociology from Rome, his co-operative studies in Canada, he taught all the co-operative courses in the department except those requiring practical field experience, which he handed over to part-time lecturers from the ministry.

Co-operative studies started with humbleness as one year in servicing programme for newly appointed junior staff of co-operative department of the ministry of commerce and industry. After the Nigeria civil war in 1970, the ministry of administration of then Eastern state close down the co-operative college at Agwu and transferred their duties to the institution.

The certificate programme in co-operative was upgraded to a two-years diploma prolgramme in 1975, and it wasn’t then targeted on the in-service trainees from the ministry but on secondary school leavers possessing the minimum institute requirement entry. The departmental requirement at this time was four credit including English, pass in mathematics, while other departments required a credit in mathematics. The reduction in entry requirement attracted many candidates reaching a peak in 1980/81 when about 120 students registered.

Two graduates were recruited to bring the number of full time lecturers to three in the year of October 1977. these were Dr. S. C Chukwu and Mr. S. Y Berko. Co-operative studies became a full-fledged department with Dr. S. C. Chukwu as the first head of department in 1978. That is when the name was changed to the department of Co-operative Economics and management in time with it protégé. In Germany during the period, a higher diploma programme was introduced.

The programme co-operative Economics and management indicates that the teaching of the subject (co-operative) will rise above the merely descriptive level. It employ tools of economics and management in the study of co-operative Enterprise. The department is slot into its curriculum courses taken from the field of Economics and management and it also taught by experts from their fields.

Two historical that affected the department is mentioned. In 1987, the federal military government under General Obasanjo favoured the strength of the diploma programme for polytechnics to three years rather than the two-steps (ND/HND) four years programme. All IMT programmes including co-operative studies has to be restructured but in 1980, the N N D (Nigeria National Diploma) certificates was withdrawn by the succeeding civilian administration and the ND/HND programme restored.

In 1985, then the military governor, Navy Captain .A. Madueke ordered the merge of the Anambra state university of Technology (ASUTECH) with IMT as a cost saving device. All the academic programmes of the IMT were up-graded to degree programme for studies and with university qualifications while the old diploma programme were retained for less qualified students, the merge, however, lasted only three months after which the two institutions were again demerged as a result of stony opposition from ex-students and friends of the institute.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS

Human beings are not predictable in any environment, there are most interesting and important resources in the enterprise. Human beings make decisions concerning other resources.

A major personnel activity is to train and educate co-operative members to facilitate and quicken their learning and acquisition of skills and knowledge, since their present inventories of capabilities are partly a consequence of their past learning. Unfortunately, co-operative institutions always set high level of performance for their members without appreciating the fact that the performance is a function of training, education, and other variables.

They fastly attribute lack of performance to inability of their members and failing to realize the fact that a person, tackling inability can make up through proper training, education and motivation.

The following information shows why some co-operative institutions especially the large ones have specific training programmes, a good number of others shows apathy in training and education to their members and infact see it as a wasteful expenditure on the part of the organization. The fact is that some of these members are left to wither away because they remain unproductive. It is for this reason that if is said that untrained student is a liability to any organization, therefore emphasizes the need for regular training and education of co-operative students by the Nigeria Tertiary Institution.

Based on the above statement and as a result for the purpose of this study, I then ask these questions.

1. Are individual training and education determined in IMT on co-operative matters?

2. How are individual pre-training needs determined in IMT?

3. Are these students needs satisfied to yield desired result?

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

First and for all, the findings and recommendations to be made from this study can be of much help to students of co-operative and Business Administration in general and in other field who may wish to investigate the subject of training and education in any other organization. With the measure of this study, it will be so useful to the institute and it will help it appreciate more, the purpose of proper training of its staff is for learning and teaching process. Teaching process will help both the students and the staff to be productive in all the department of the institution will also definitely increase.

However, this research work will afford or create an opportunity to undertake a research work for the first time on in-depth study in all field of study of interest.

1.4 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Since the researcher is using the survey approach in this study, it means that he is going to make a great use of the questionnaire as to cover a wider range of about 85% to 95% of the members of the co-operative institutions.

This research centers on the institution while not much use to be made on the part training progamme carried out by co-operative institutions in the this state.

It is important to note at this junction that a number of problems encountered in the course of this research among which are:-

a) Finance:- Due to the high cost of materials, transportation and the inflation rate in the country today, the researcher had encountered a lot of financial difficulties in the writing and production of this work.

b) Time:- Lack of time is another major problems that faced this work. Due to the rush in the academic calendar, I have a little time to expand my research method and approach. The periods of normal lecture and other assignments were shared to make this project work a success up to this point. I missed lectures and many things like individual activities just to meet up and keep appointment in connection with this research.

1.5 DEFINITION OF TERMS.

CEM - Co-operation Economics and Management.

IMT - Institution of Management and Technology

NND - Nigeria National Diploma