PERCEIVED COMPETENCE IN OFFICE AUTOMATION AND DIGITAL MARKETING AMONG GRADUATING BUSINESS EDUCATION STUDENTS IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN ANAMBRA STATE FOR TAX ADMINISTRATION AND AWARENESS
Abstract
This study evaluated the digital readiness of 124 final-year Business Education undergraduates across public universities in Anambra State, assessing their perceived competencies in office automation and digital marketing for tax administration and civic awareness. While global fiscal governance has digitized rapidly, it remains uncertain whether graduating cohorts are keeping pace, creating a potential operational gap between corporate expectations and graduate capabilities. Therefore, this study executed a diagnostic assessment of final-year students’ perceived dual-domain digital competencies and curriculum adequacy. Adopting a descriptive survey design with a census sampling technique, data were collected using the validated 21-item Perceived Competence in Office Automation and Digital Marketing Questionnaire (PCOADMQ), possessing a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.84, and analyzed using Mean and Standard Deviation. The main findings revealed a clear competency gap: students perceived themselves to have a low extent of competence in utilizing critical office automation tools (X = 2.24, SD = 0.79), yet reported a high extent of competence (X = 2.52, SD = 0.76) in basic digital marketing strategies like launching general social media campaigns. Furthermore, the students uniformly rated the adequacy of their current curriculum as low (X = 2.28, SD = 0.77), citing a lack of practical laboratory infrastructure and hands-on simulation frameworks. It is concluded that while students possess general communication comfort, they face severe operational deficiencies in administrative accounting systems caused by theory-heavy curriculum delivery. These findings imply that educational planners must urgently implement software-driven modules and practical lab examinations to prevent graduate underemployment and corporate onboarding challenges. The study recommended that the Ministry of Education, in collaboration with university authorities, should strengthen practical digital training in schools.
Keywords: Business Education, Office Automation, Digital Marketing, Tax Administration, Civic Tax Awareness, Public Universities
Chinagorom V. Okafor and Faith U. Umeano
Office of the Dean, School of Business Education, Federal College of Education (Technical), Umunze
Department of Commerce and Cooperative Education, School of Business Education, Federal College of Education (Technical), Umunze