Factors Affecting Students’ Choice and Perception
of Urban and Regional Planning in Nigerian Universities
Abstract
The authors examined the factors affecting the choice and the perception of 107 final year students of Urban and Regional Planning (URP) from six universities in Nigeria. Analysis revealed that 63.8 percent of the students did not receive counselling before their enrolment and only 35.8 percent of them intentionally chose the course on their own while 4.7 percent were influenced by their parents. Of the 59.4 percent that accidentally got into the course, 16.8 percent had originally chosen Architecture and 12.6 percent Accounting. In spite of this, the students agreed that URP as a career can guarantee life fulfilment and 72.8 percent would advise their children to choose the course as a career. Irrespective of the mode of entry and motive for choosing URP as a carrier 91.2 percent of the trainee planners in their final year in the selected universities did not see their choice as a mistake and have come to find the course interesting. All the students agreed that it is not the certificate that makes people successful but what is important is what people make of themselves with the certificate. They also agreed that professional planners can be successful but they are concerned about the negative image the society has about the planners. The study recommended re-branding of Urban and Regional Planning among others.
Introduction
Physical planning in Nigeria has a long history dating back to the colonial period where planning education in the country is relatively recent. The colonial government for instance enacted the Town Improvement Ordinance in 1863 and established the Lagos Executive Development Board (LEDB) following the outbreak of bubonic plague in Lagos between 1925 and 1928 (Abiodun, 1985). The Board was established during this period to clear the slum areas affected by the plague and to establish housing units in Lagos. However, the bulk of the policy makers and programme implementers consisted mainly of civil servants.
Local training of professional physical planners could be said to have started at the Polytechnic, Ibadan in 1972 when the full professional diploma programme in town planning was specifically designed to admit students for of the 3-year town planning programme of the polytechnic (Olujinmi, 1999). Hitherto, all Nigerian professional Town Planners had been receiving their trainings overseas especially in the U.K. America and Australia. The need for a professional association in Nigeria led to the formation of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners in 1966. Twenty-two years later, the Town Planners’ Registration Council of Nigeria was established under Decree No. 3 of 1988 with the mandate of determining who are the town planners; what standards of knowledge and skills are to be attained; registering members and regulating and controlling the practice of the profession among others.
With so many higher institutions of learning now offering varieties of environmental courses and this coupled with the competition in the building industry, this study is set to investigate the level of interest in Urban and Regional Planning as a discipline by the planners-in- training in selected universities in Nigeria.
Review of Pertinent Literature
In choosing which course to enroll for in the university by students, many factors come into play. While some students usually have a particular course in mind and have adequately prepared for it right from their secondary school days, others wait till their ordinary level results are out. Other students are admitted to read a particular course but when they fail to meet the minimum requirements for that course they look for alternative courses.
Extensive studies have been carried out on factors influencing students’ choices of careers. In their study on the retail career choice, Soyeon and Goldberry (undated) identified three broad factors namely: intrinsic, extrinsic and lifestyle. The intrinsic factors include the nature of the job itself, enjoyment of the job as a whole, variety of jobs, intellectual stimulation, pleasant work environment and fit of job to personality.
The extrinsic factors identified by the authors are salary, benefits, job security/stability and prestige of career field while lifestyle factors include flexibility of working hours, ability to manage home/family, time for leisure and preferred geographical location.
In another study by the College of Occupational Therapists (2000), awareness was found to be a major factor in career choice. The study showed that around a third of the students made the decision to become occupational therapists while studying in years 12 and 13 (16%) or after taking A level/higher (15%). Only 5 percent made the decision before GCE/Scottish equivalent level. The study identified the respondents’ friends and family (40%) as the most influential source of career advice. University prospectus, school career staff, college careers’ pack and local career services are other sources.
Pappu (2002) in his study on choice of marketing as a career in Australia employed the use of Factor analytical Technique to reduce 28 variables to seven factors that explain 73.78 percent of the variance in his data. The factors are named; ‘Utility of marketing knowledge in the Business arena, match with other major exposures to Introductory Marketing Courses and Faculty, Faculty reputation, Job prospectus, Course variety and Intrinsic Motivation.’ A similar result was obtained among Economics major students in Australia. Worthington and Higgs (1997) employed both regression analysis and binary probit model to examine a number of variables which include student’s personality, perception and other physical and educational characteristics.
These students were asked to assign ordered preferences on a 5 – point scale between 36 opposing adjectives on the basis of their perception of the economics profession. These items were arrayed along four dimensions of perception, namely:
1.Interest (boring versus interesting, dull versus exciting; 2. Individuality (Introvert versus extrovert); 3. Structural (structure versus flexibility, routine versus unpredictable); 4. Precision (accurate versus imprecise, challenging versus easy, mathematical versus verbal). Eleven factors were extracted, one for interest, two for individuality, five for precision and three for structure accounting for 56, 67, 59, and 49 percent of cumulative variance within each dimension respectively. The same authors found that for Banking and Finance, the choice is a function of students’ perception of the structure in the Banking and Finance profession, interest in the finance profession and mode of attendance and, to a lesser extent, gender.
For the purpose of balancing the review, the study carried out on the engineering discipline by Woolnough Guo et al. (1997) was examined. The authors carried out parallel studies in six countries of Australia, Canada, China, England, Japan and Portugal to investigate the influence of different factors on students’ decision to choose/not to choose a higher education course in one of the physical sciences or engineering . Some factors identified related to what goes on in the school and in the science lessons. Some were external to the school and were related to the status of science and engineering careers. Other factors were dependent on the individual students themselves – their aptitudes, abilities, home backgrounds and gender.
In Ghana, a survey of 550 students by Apori et. al. (2003) indicated that bio-data and socio-economic background of the students such as education of parents, communities/towns or cities in which they live, low level of knowledge about the prospects in choosing agriculture as vocation, terminal nature at agricultural colleges influenced the decision of students to choose agricultural science. Other factors included: influence of parents, guardians and peers who accorded agriculture low recognition compared to pharmacy, law, architecture etc and facilities (man and materials) for the teaching of agriculture and the mode (pedagogy) use in teaching agriculture.
With this background, this study is set to study the factors influencing the choice and perception of Urban and Regional Planning which has received little or no attention in the literature.
Methodology
This study is part of a comprehensive and long term survey designed to study the factors influencing the choice of URP course and those factors affecting the academic performance of URP students. All the Heads of Department of URP in Universities offering the course have been contact. The response has been slow and some of the questionnaires returned were not usable and were rejected.
There was no prior information on the number of final year undergraduate Urban and Regional Planning (URP) students in the various institutions. However, twenty-five (25) questionnaires were sent to each university across the country. The returns are as shown in Table 1.
The questionnaires were sent directly to the Heads of URP Department in these institutions who arranged for their distribution among their final year students during the 2000/2001 academic session. Returns from these institutions, based on the actual number of students in the final year (obtained through the questionnaires) ranged from about 99% for the University of Nigeria (UNN), Enugu Campus, to about 24% for the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ife.
Frequency analysis was employed to explore respondents’ responses while an adaptation of Likert linear scale was used to analyse the opinions expressed by the respondents.
Table 1: Distribution of Questionnaires
No / Institution / Sample size / Population1 / Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) / 12 (21.8%) / 55
2 / Federal University of Tech. Yola (FUTY) / 19 (54.3%) / 35
3 / University of Nigeria (UNN) / 15 (93.8%) / 16
4 / Federal University of Tech. Minna (FUTM) / 13 (72.2%) / 18
5 / Ladoke Akintola University of Tech. (LAUTECH) / 25 (43.1%) / 58
6 / Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) / 23 (47.9%) / 48
Total / 107 (46.5%) / 230
Source: Authors’ Field Work (2001)
Analysis of Data
Background of students
Male dominance is evident among the planning students with females accounting for only 21.5 percent (Table 2). The mean age of the students surveyed was 26 years. Gender-wise, the females with mean age of 25 years were younger than the males (26 years). LAUTECH (24 years) had the youngest population compared to OAU with mean age of 27 years.
Also from Table 2, only 35.8 percent of the students interviewed intentionally chose URP as their life career, 4.7 percent were influenced by their parents while as much as 59.4 percent got into planning against their wish. Furthermore, 31.4 percent of the students joined the planning programme through the remedial course (note OAU and UNN do not run remedial programme) while 55.2 percent and 13.3 percent came in through University Matriculation Examinations (UME) and Direct Entry respectively.
Table2: Background of the sampled students.
Variable / Characteristics / PercentageSex / Male / 78.1%
Female / 21.9%
Mode of Entry / Remedial / 31.4%
UME / 55.2%
Direct Entry / 13.3%
Motivation for URP / What I always wanted / 35.8%
Wish of my parents / 4.7%
Last Resort / 59.4%
Future Prospect / Very Bright / 75%
Average / 23.1%
Bleak / 1.9%
Mistake choosing URP? / Yes / 8.7%
No / 91.2%
Find URP interesting? / Yes / 94.3%
No / 5.7%
Which aspect is interesting? / Design / 55.3%
Theory / 20.4%
Term Paper / 7.8%
Field Work / 16.5%
Which aspect do you dislike? / Design / 29.2%
Theory / 20.8%
Term Paper / 29.2%
Field Work / 20.8%
What next after graduation? / Higher Degree in Planning / 31.1%
Join Private Planning Org. / 9.4%
Join Public Planning Org. / 33.4%
Any profitable employment / 21.7%
Go into business / 4.7%
Life satisfaction guaranteed in Planning? / Yes / 80.8%
No / 19.2%
Source: Authors’ Field Work (2001)
The students whose original course was not URP cited Architecture (16.8%). Accounting (12.1%), agricultural Economics (5.6%), among others as their choices (see Appendix 1). In terms of ethnic composition, UNN on the one hand and OAU and Lautech on the other hand were dominated by Igbo and Yoruba students respectively. Other institutions were more balanced with no dominant group.
On the overall, Yoruba students constituted 46.7% of the sampled population; this was followed by Igbo (15.8%), Tiv (3.7%), Igala (3.7%) and Nupe (2.8%).
Students’ Attitude towards Planning Profession
From Table 2, in spite of the fact that majority of the students were either forced into the discipline (as most of the students in ABU claimed) or entered into the discipline as the last resort (what their entry qualifications possessed can fetch them), 75 percent of them saw their future prospects as bright and as much as 91.3 percent did not see being a planning student as a mistake. Only 3.8 percent of the students claimed not to find the course interesting. The aspects they did not find interesting were Design (29.2%), Term Paper (29.2%), Theory (20.8%) and Field Work (20.8%).
Of those who found the course interesting, designing course was their choice (55.3%) followed by Theoretical courses (20.4%), field Work (16.5%) while only 7.8 percent loved Term Paper writing. On what to do next after graduation, 33.0 percent of the students planned to work in Public Planning Organisations, 30.8 percent wished to go for higher studies in URP, 21. 7 percent into any profitable employment while only 9.4 percent of them wished to join private Planning Organisations.
As many as 80.8 percent of the students agreed that Planning as a career could guarantee life fulfillment. Among those who claimed otherwise, as shown in Table 3, 54.8 percent of them planned to combine Planning with other jobs while 35.5 percent planned to obtain additional degrees or certificates in different disciplines and only 9.7 percent planned to abandon planning profession entirely.
On whether the students would choose planning again, 74.7 percent claimed Yes and almost equal percentage (72.8) would advise their children to choose planning as a career. As many as 63.8 percent of the students themselves did not receive counselling before their admission.
Table 3: Students’ Responses to Attitudinal Questions.
If life satisfaction cannot be guaranteed in Planning, what next? / Abandon Planning / 9.7%Combine with other jobs / 54.8%
Combine with other disciplines / 35.5%
Choose Planning again? / Yes / 74.7%
No / 25.3%
Advise children to take Planning? / Yes / 72.8%
No / 27.2%
Did you receive counselling? / Yes / 36.2%
No / 63.8%
Participation in URP Students’ Association? / Fully / 59.8%
Partially / 38.5%
No / 7.2%
Participate in State’s NITP? / Fully / 14.6%
Partially / 38.5%
No / 46.9%
Student NITP Registration? / Yes / 49.5%
No / 50.5%
If unregistered, why? / No interest / 13.7%
Not introduced / 41.2%
No impact of state Chapter / 45.1%
While 59.8 percent of the students actively participated in the URP Students’ Association activities in their branches, it is only 14.6 percent of them that participated fully in their State Chapters of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners’ (NITP) activities and about 50% had registered as a student member at the national level. Those who did not register claimed that their State NITP chapters had not made impact (45.1%), they had not been introduced into the NITP activities (41.2%) or had no interest at all (13.7%).
Students’ Perception of Aspects of Planning Profession
Tables 4 and 5 show the responses of students to the various items designed to measure the students’ perception of the planning profession. The mean scores in column 6 aptly summarises the consensus opinion of the students. The scores were obtained by assigning weights to the 4 – point Likert scale, that is, from strongly Agree = 4 points to Strongly Disagree = 1 point, then summing the scores for each item and them dividing by the number of respondents to each item. The mean score was then grouped as follows to arrive at consensus opinion about each item:
1.0 – 2.49 = Disagree (D), 2.50 – 3.49 = Agree (A) and 3.50 – 4.00 = Strongly Agree (SA).
When asked about the prospects of their profession vis-avis other professions, responses to this question indicate that on the whole, the students agreed that their future prospects are no less brighter than those of other professionals. In three universities – FUT Yola, UNN, and FUT Minna – with the mean weighted scores of greater than 3.5, the students strongly agreed on this point. It has to be pointed out here that career talks should be intensified in ABU, Zaria with the lowest mean score of 2.91 (Table 5).
The students also agreed that what one achieves with his certificate depends on one’s drive and initiatives. The consensus of opinion here is Agree with UNN (3.71) strongly agreeing on this point. It is suggested that the professional Practice skills of the students should be well developed; so also is their writing skill which is required in proposal writing. Exposure to computer applications and related fields such as Remote sensing and Geographical Information System is desirable to give students wider opportunities outside the traditional planning jobs.
Further observations in Table 5 show that the students believe that planners can be and are indeed successful in life. Generally students also agreed on this point (3.29). It is only in FUT Minna where the students strongly agreed. The perception of the students in Minna may be explained by the fact that most of the professional planners in the state and at Abuja – the Federal Capital – are highly placed and successful materially. Indeed, the first National President of the Town Planners Registration Council (TOPREC) was from the state. The implication of this observation is that in order to project the image of the profession among the trainee planners and the public in general, the practitioners should conduct themselves in a noble manner and take their rightful positions in the scheme of things.
Table 4: Measure of Perception of Students from individual Universities
Opinion / OAU / FUTY / UNN / FUTM / LAUTECH / ABUFuture prospect of URP students is not duller than in other professions / 3.08A / 3.53SSA / 3.85SA / 3.69SA / 3.32A / 2.91A
What one achieves with his certificate depends on one’s drive and initiatives / 3.33A / 3.32A / 3.71SA / 3.08A / 3.28A / 3.43A
There are many successful Planners out there / 3.25A / 3.39A / 3.36A / 3.58SA / 3.28A / 3.04A
Planning is creative but not lucrative / 3.08A / 3.26A / 2.79A / 3.00A / 2.96A / 3.09A
Planning may not be lucrative but Planners impact is felt / 3.00A / 3.06A / 2.93A / 3.15A / 2.92A / 2.74A
Planners are feared rather than being respected / 3.08A / 2.79\a / 2.71A / 2.85A / 3.04A / 2.83A
Planners should practice aspects of other professions / 3.08A / 3.06A / 3.57A / 2.77A / 3.38A / 2.96A
Other professionals should be allowed to prepare layouts / 1.33D / 1.32D / 1.43D / 1.23D / 1.68D / 1.26D
Planning students should be made to acquire M. Sc. before graduation / 2.25A / 3.26A / 3.00A / 3.46A / 2.12A / 3.48A
Induction ceremony should be performed before graduation / 2.92A / 3.``A / 3.00A / 3.62SA / 3.12A / 3.04A
Source: Authors’ Field Work (2001)