ABSTRACT
The guidance for entrepreneurship education has provided a framework for assessing and developing business and entrepreneurial attributes and skills which work hand in hand to contribute to the development of entrepreneurial behavior within individuals. Entrepreneurship education is an important tool for shaping the entrepreneurship behavior of graduates. With this in mind a large amount of universities have decided to establish entrepreneurship education programs in their curricular. This study is therefore focused on assessing the effect of entrepreneurship education outcomes on entrepreneurship behavior. Data were collected by using questionnaire, 302 postgraduate students and descriptive research design was used for the analysis of data. The results indicate the positive effect of entrepreneurship education outcome on entrepreneurial behavior T (R= .584, R square= .341, t= 10.233). Based on the findings, it is recommended that more universities should include entrepreneurship courses in their curricula and must ensure that all students regardless of their academic specialization study entrepreneurship. The learning environment should be conducive enough for learning so as to encourage students to pursue entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship education should have the practical aspect whereby students are asked to take up a business project. This therefore helps to build the entrepreneurship behavior of students in which student’s exhibit entrepreneurial traits such as risk taking, innovating new ideas having a clear vision for the business.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Entrepreneurship education in the universities have been demonstrated as a critical factor in providing not only knowledge, but skills, training and best learning models for the university students, (Oyugi, 2014). In recent times, entrepreneurship program is being taught in institutions which has raised a level of inspiration and intention among students. It has been found out that people are born with entrepreneurial traits but those traits must be developed by acquiring skills and expanding ones knowledge. The university plays a major role in the area of developing and training students in the entrepreneurial career path. Zhang et al (2014), stated that “the teaching environment in the universities is most influential for the university students in their perceptions for entrepreneurial career development and they are most likely to venture into their own businesses. There must be a justification for the constantly growing number of universities offering entrepreneurship education programs (Lange et al., 2011). One the long run, Entrepreneurship education has a great value and positive effect on both individuals and the economy in general. These values therefore help individuals to create their own businesses, acquisition of skills and training and development.
Entrepreneurship education is seen as a way by which students are enhanced and equipped with enough skills and ideas that can be used to make things happen. This helps students to increase in their attributes, knowledge and capabilities to set up a business venture. With entrepreneurship education in place, graduates have the ability to acquire some entrepreneurial traits which can influence the graduate’s entrepreneurship behavior (Ediagbonya, 2013).
1.2 Statement of Research Problem
In recent years, entrepreneurship education programs have been adopted by schools but there are different scholars have cried out to prove their lack of efficiency. Surlemont (2009) stated that “Sceptic actors which are around the education system have made aware the idea that entrepreneurship education is seen as a way by which the private sectors invade and corrupt the class room. An average Nigerian student has a job seeking mindset and it is expected that entrepreneurship education would change the mindset of the students towards job creation. There have been conflicting findings on the extent to which entrepreneurship education could influence the mindset of the students (Moore, 2011). Some scholars further argued that many graduates who claimed to have been exposed to entrepreneurship education do not have clarity of business vision. In other words, in spite of their entrepreneurial mindset, some of them still experienced business failures and this failure, perhaps, could be attributed to lack of clarity of vision.
The usefulness of entrepreneurship education is dependent on its ability to develop the skill and innovative abilities of graduates. Arvanite, (2009) stated that entrepreneurship education must be a tool for stimulating and also challenging students to become creative and also develop innovative ideas which therefore brings about setting-up and sustaining of a business other investment opportunities with the right status. Unfortunately, there is paucity of research as regards the extent to which entrepreneurial status facilitates innovative abilities of the graduates. It is against this backdrop that this study examined how entrepreneurial status facilitates the development of graduates’ innovative skills.
Possessing the right attributes and abilities is a major step to becoming an entrepreneur. Gartner (1990) illustrated that entrepreneurship involves individuals with distinct personality characteristics and abilities. It is surprising to know that quite a large number of graduates do not have the capability to take risks, they are either afraid or uncertain about the outcome of the risk. There is not much consideration for entrepreneurship education in the curriculum of the universities. Akinyemi (1987) notes the educational institutions, few as they were, remained factories for producing white collar jobbers with no special profession nor was entrepreneurial skills envisaged in the educational system. This challenge may arise as a result of lack of skilled manpower and insufficient infrastructure.
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