FUNCTIONAL LITERACY NEEDS OF MARKET WOMEN IN NSUKKA MAIN MARKET OF NSUKKA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF ENUGU STATE

Ugwoegbu, I.T.; Adebola, H.E.; Ewelum, J.N. and Madu, K. O.

Department of Adult Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State

E-mail: ugwoegbuifeanyi@yahoo.com; helenadebola95@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

The title of the paper is functional literacy needs of market women in Nsukka main market of Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State. Functional literacy refers to the type of literacy linked with economic, technical, vocational, occupational or job skills and acquired in the context of such skills. The purpose of the study was therefore to find out the educational needs, family management needs and social life needs of the market women. The study was a survey design. The market was divided into ten lines from which 225 women were selected out of the 446 women who are registered owners of the stalls in Nsukka main market. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire made up of 17 items structured in a five point likert type scale. The questionnaire was subjected to validation by three experts. Crombach Alpha reliability co-efficient was applied to find out the internal consistency. The reliability obtained was 0.75 which shows the appropriateness of the questionnaire. Data collected was analysed using mean scores. The findings among others show that there is need to give functional literacy to the market women in Nsukka main market. The study showed that market women in Nsukka require educational needs, family management needs and social life needs to be able to function effectively in their daily endeavours. Based on the findings, recommendations were made among others that functional literacy programmes should be organized for market women in Nsukka main market in order for them to be functionally effective in their communities and society at large.

Keywords: functional literacy, market women, educational needs, family needs, social life needs