Abstract

This paper was an attempt to examine youth empowerment in higher education for sustainable development of developing communities in Cross River State in Nigeria. In Cross River State developing communities, youths are in the majority and form a very strong formidable force in the society we live, study, but are not empowered while in school nor after graduation. Hence, they rarely contribute to sustainable development of their communities. To address this problem, three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The design of the study was ex-post facto. The sample of the study was one hundred and forty six (146) youths drawn out of a population of five hundred (500) youths in the study area. The instrument used for data collection and analysis was a self-developed research questionnaire comprising 30 items. The data was analyzed using Pearson product moment correlation analysis. The result of the analysis showed that when youths in higher educational institutions are empowered, they will contribute to sustainable development of their communities. Based on the conclusion, the paper recommended that government, parents and stakeholders should address the issue of youth empowerment in educational institutions to enable them acquire skills for empowerment in the society.

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