Red Cap Title Holders’ Participation in Education and Community Development in South East Nigeria: The Case of Selected Communities in Imo and Abia States

Abstract

Town unions including age grades and title holders could assist in upholding peace, culture and other community needs towards the well-being of the society. This study investigated Red Cap Title holders’ participation in education and community development in selected communities in Imo and Abia states. A descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was all the 1,340 red cap title holders in the 856 autonomous communities in Imo and Abia States. A total of 134 red cap title holders were randomly selected from 86 autonomous communities across the 3 senatorial districts to serve as respondents.  Three research questions and one hypothesis were raised to guide the study. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire titled “Red Cap Title Holders Participation in Education and Community Development Questionnaire (REDCAPTEDCDQUE)” was designed, validated, pilot-tested (N=20, r=.77). Descriptive statistics of mean was used to answer the research questions while Pearson r statistics was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The result revealed high level participation in educational and community development programmes, high level participation in scholarship for indigent students. However, it also revealed low level support for women in governance. The study further revealed that there exists significant relationship between red cap title holders activities and education development in the Imo and Abia state. The paper recommended among others that Red cap title holders should increase their support for women in governance towards progressive and sustainable national development.

Keywords: Red-Cap-Tile, Education and Community Development