Abstract:
Technical development in Foundry industry has come with new ideas and challenges which Foundry Technology Teachers need to improve upon so that they can teach Foundry Technology effectively. This study is therefore aimed at identifying the skill needs of Foundry Technology Teachers. To carry out the study, a four-point scale was adopted. The instrument, made up of 78 Structured Questionnaire items was validated by three industrial education experts and thereafter used in collecting data for the study. The reliability Coefficient of the instrument for the study was 0.89 using test – retest (α) reliability test which was administered to 40 Foundry Technology Teachers in North eastern zone of Nigeria who were not part of the population of the study. Four research questions were used to collect data from 98 Foundry Technology Teachers in North Central zone of Nigeria. Mean statistics and standard deviation were used to analyze the data for the research questions; while t-test was used for testing the null hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study, among others, revealed that the respondents need knowledge of computerized foundry equipment. Such skills for programming induction furnace for melting metal, skills to use the computer to keep the furnace in good operating condition, skills to use the computer to operate electrical arc furnace, skill to use computerized hearth furnace, skills to programme computer for smooth operation of electric arc furnace, skills to feed information into the computer for machining operation among others. In pattern making the following skills are not possessed by Foundry Technology Teachers should make use of computer to design various shapes, timing the computer for quick pattern design, skills to carry out checks on the information fed in the computer in case of corrections, skills to read trouble code on computer in pattern making machine and few skills not possessed in Finishing and Cleaning, Management of Polytechnics should organize further training for Foundry Technology Teacher on the skills needed in order to update their knowledge on current changes in Foundry Technology.
