The Impact of Literacy on Vocational Skills Acquisition for Better Community Participation

Abstract

This study examined the impact of literacy on vocational skill acquisition with the aim of                                          making the young people self- reliant, thereby helping them to be more involved in community participation and participate more in community issues. In this study, vocational skill acquisition is used synonymously with apprenticeship scheme. Two local government areas in Oyo state were used for the study with 200 subjects as sample. Three hypotheses were generated for the study and data were collected through a self designed questionnaire tagged “Literacy for vocational skill Acquisition” (LVSA). The collected data were analyzed using t-test statistical tool at 0.05 level of significance. The result showed that literacy has a lot of impact on skill acquisition. That being literate would make a person stand tall among equals in vocational skill acquisition and later practice. That literacy would make a person not only functional in the sense of being permanent for application in daily context but in the sense of being adaptable to new and changing circumstances and requirements in their job performance. That there is a significant relationship between literacy and skill acquisition as those who were literate caught up better than those who were not literate and they performed their jobs better than the illiterate ones. The study recommended among others that for people to be really self reliant in the daily performance of their jobs, they must be literate as it is through literacy that necessary information can be gathered for better job performance in the communities.