Effect of Vocational and Entrepreneurship Programme of the National Centre for Women Development Abuja on Women Empowerment in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

The study is an assessment of the effect of vocational and entrepreneurship programme of the  centre of the National Centre for Women Development Abuja (NCWDA) on women  empowerment in Abuja. There have been reported cases of women not being able to start a  business of their own even after they have graduated from the NCWD which make it difficult for  them to become productive members of the society. Others find it difficult to access starts up  capital to set up businesses of their own as graduates of the centre. This further put women in a  disadvantaged position. The main objective of the study therefore is to examine the contribution  of the Centre with special reference to its vocational training and entrepreneurship programme.  The study adopted a survey design to collect data from beneficiaries of the programme in three  area councils in Abuja. Questionnaire was used as an instrument of data collection. The study  used the PLS-SEM for data analysis. The results from the Structural Equation Modelling  revealed that the vocational training programme of the centre has a positive and significant  effect on women empowerment while the entrepreneurship programme of the centre is not  significant in explaining women empowerment in National Centre for Women Development  Abuja. The study recommended that the centre should acquire more state-of-the-art equipment  for training because the current training undertaken at the centre such as bead making, soap  making, baking is becoming obsolete in the 21st century to ensure the sustainability of the  programme. The study further recommended that there is a need to make ICT training  compulsory for all beneficiaries of the programme irrespective of the choice of skills applied  because of the marketability and sustainability of the skills.