THE ROLE OF ETHICAL AND VALUES EDUCATION IN EMPOWERING YOUTH FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

The study investigated the role of ethical and values education in empowering youth for sustainable development in Rivers State. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study according Rivers State Ministry of Youth Development (2023) is 1.5 million youth ages of 18 and 40 years. A sample size of 450 respondents was established using Taro Yamane formular. A multistage sampling technique was used. Nine LGAs was randomly selected, purposive sampling was employed to select youth within the LGAs, 50 participants (50 per LGA) were selected using stratified random sampling. A structured questionnaire, titled: Youth Ethical Empowerment and Sustainable Development Questionnaire (YEESDQ) in line with four Likert-scale rating of Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree and Strongly Disagree and 15-items were used. One expert in Educational Psychology, Guidance and Counselling Department validated the instruments. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient determined a reliability index of 0.75, 420 copies were retrieved out of 450 copies. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer research questions while independent t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 significance level. The study found that policy frameworks exist does not significantly support the integration of ethical and values education in youth development programmes, ethical and values education does not significantly contribute to the development of leadership qualities among youths and inclusion of ethical values in school curricula does not significantly influence the work-readiness and employability skills of youths in Rivers State. The study recommended among others that educational policymakers should consistently collaborate with youth development experts to revise and reinforce ethical education policies that promote strong moral foundations in all youth empowerment initiatives across communities in Rivers State