Safety Practices Required of Mechanical Engineering Craft Practice Students in Handling Equipment in Technical Colleges in Rivers State

Abstract

The study focused on the safety practices required of mechanical students in handling equipment in technical colleges in RiverState. Two purposes, research questions and hypotheses guided the study. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design and was carried in RiversState.  The population of the study was 160 respondents, comprising 22 teachers and 138 mechanical students in the technical colleges in RiversState. Data were collected through a self-structure questionnaire. The instrument contains four sections A-D. Section A elicited information on personal data of the respondents. The instrument was partition in to various and after Liketr-5-point rating scale of agreement. The instrument was face-validated by two experts and has 0.81 reliability index. The findings of the study revealed that safety practices are required by mechanical engineering craft students in handling hand and machine tools in technical colleges. It was recommended that strict measure should be employed to ensure that workshop technicians/assistants employed to manage mechanical workshops are those trained for the job. Workshop technicians should be involved in routine retraining, workshops and seminars to help them acquire the skills as well as to keep them abreast with the important innovative safety practices for effective mechanical workshop management.