COMMUNITY EDUCATION NEEDS OF COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATIONS LEADERS IN ANAMBRA STATE, NIGERIA.

ABSTRACT

The central focus of this study was to ascertain the community education needs of community based organizations leaders in Anambra State of Nigeria. To guide this study, five research questions were posed and three null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The population for the study comprised 1,701 executive members of the 189 registered  community based organizations in the 21 local government areas that make up the three senatorial zones of Anambra State. The sample consisted of 1071 executive members of community based organizations selected through stratified random sampling. The internal consistency reliability coefficient obtained for each of the clusters I-V were 0.89, 0.88, 0.87, 0.86 and 0.92 respectively while the overall reliability coefficient was 0.88. Questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. Mean was used to analyze the research questions while t-test was used to test the null hypotheses. Among the rmajor findings of the study were that  the respondents agreed that they need basic, social, political, economic, and cultural education to improve or further lead as required, there was no significant difference in the mean ratings of the literate and non-literate; respondents on the basic education needs there was significant difference in the mean ratings of married and single respondents on social education needs; and there was no significant difference in the mean ratings of the urban based and rural based respondents on political education needs. It was recommended that the Agency for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-formal Education in Anambra State should mount campaign in the rural communities on the need for community education programmes, that community education centres should be established in the rural areas and qualified adult educators employed to facilitate the programmes, policy makers and other administrators in mass literacy, adult and non-formal education should reflect the needs of the community in policy formulation.