Entrepreneurship Education, Managing Unemployment and Poverty Alleviation in 21st Century (Published)
This paper examined the courses of unemployment in Nigeria with a view to proffering practical solution to it so as to reduce poverty rate. Secondary data gathered from various sources such as: CBN reports et cetera covering the period between 1970 to 2014 were used. It employed the regression analysis as the analytical method E-views version 9 and found out that a percentage increase in population growth will increase unemployment by 4.94%. Also the study found a positive relationship between government educational expenditure and unemployment rate in Nigeria and lastly, the result showed there is a positive relationship between gross capital formation and unemployment rate in Nigeria. It concluded by recommending that development of entrepreneurial skills and initiatives through entrepreneurship and training should be of paramount importance especially in the higher education sector so as to facilitate the employability and creativity of graduates who will derivatively contribute wealth of the nation not only as job seekers, but also job creators.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship education, Poverty Alleviation, Unemployment, educational expenditure, gross capital formation
Entrepreneurship Education: An Imperative Tool for Economy Diversification in a Mono Sector Economy (Published)
The study focuses on “entrepreneurship education: an imperative tools for economic diversification”, its purpose is to ascertain the effect of entrepreneurship education as an imperative tool for economic diversification in a mono-sector economy. The objectives of the study are: to determine if the quality of entrepreneurship education given to students is enough to make them successful entrepreneur, to find out if the environment is conducive enough to make entrepreneurship education good enough for a long lasting diversification measure and to ascertain if entrepreneurship education is actually a tool for diversification of our economy. The research questions are: is the quality of entrepreneurship education given to students enough to make them successful entrepreneur?, how conducive enough is the environment to make entrepreneurship education good enough for a long lasting economic diversification measure? is entrepreneurship education actually a tool for diversification of our economy? A survey research design was adopted for the study; a structured questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collections. The questionnaire was administered on 60 randomly selected students in the five (5) schools in Adeyemi College of Education. The statistical tool used for analysis was mean and standard deviation, to ascertain the difference in responses. Four rating scale was used in eliciting level of response: Strongly Agreed (SA), Agreed (A), Disagreed (D) and Strongly Disagreed (SD). From the findings some recommendations were made they are: that entrepreneurship education should be sponsored by the government to make it a worthwhile project, that entrepreneurship education curriculum should not be theory oriented but practical, that financial empowerment should be incorporated into the entrepreneurship package to serve as a takeoff fund for the beneficiaries.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship education, economic diversification, mono-sector economy
Status of the Implementation of Entrepreneurship Education in Universities in Delta State, Nigeria (Published)
The study assessed the status of the implementation of entrepreneurship education in universities in Delta State, Nigeria. Two research questions and corresponding null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted descriptive design. The population of the study comprised all the 65 lecturers and 5,000 students in the two public universities in Delta State. The sample size was 530 (lecturers 65 and 497 students) from the two universities using purposive sampling techniques. Assessment of the Implementation of Entrepreneurship Education Questionnaire (AIEEQ) was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by experts to ensure face and content validity, which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.87 using Cronbach Alpha. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while independent samples z-test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level of significance. It was found that entrepreneurship education was properly implemented in the undergraduate and post graduate levels in Delta State universities. However, the programme was bedeviled with conspicuous challenges. It was recommended among others that a monitoring team should be set up by the National Universities Commission (NUC) to monitor the progress and shortcoming of entrepreneurship education in the universities.
Keywords: Challenges, Entrepreneurship education, Implementation, Status
Entrepreneurship Education for Poverty Reduction and Enhanced Citizen Participation in Community Development Activities (Published)
Poverty has been identified as a major set-back to any economy. Poverty had become endemic to many nations of the world especially the less developed. To treat the scourge of poverty, proactive actions and plans, such as equipping citizens with entrepreneurship skills and knowledge must be put in place. This paper therefore, presents entrepreneurship education as a cure to poverty and its curriculum, a frame work for poverty alleviation programmes. The concepts of entrepreneurship education, poverty and participation are fully discussed. The objects of entrepreneurship, goal and the curriculum context of effective entrepreneurship education were also discussed. The relationship between poverty, entrepreneurship and participation were highlighted. The paper concludes that given the immense benefits crewing from entrepreneurship education, and its role enhancing community development activities, the nation should channel its efforts to improve the economy and better the lives of the citizens.
Keywords: Citizen Participation, Community development, Entrepreneurship education, Poverty, Poverty Reduction
Enabling and Stimulating Entrepreneurship Education in Higheer Education Institutions: Catalyst for Venturesome Youths and Sustainable Development in Nigeria (Published)
Entrepreneurship is increasingly being recognized as a significant conduct for bringing about a transformation to sustainable products and processes, with numerous high-profile thinkers advocating entrepreneurship as a panacea for many social and environmental concerns. Yet, despite the promise entrepreneurship holds for fostering sustainable development, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding the nature of entrepreneurship’s role in the area, and the academic discourse on sustainable development within the mainstream entrepreneurship literature has to date been sparse. While entrepreneurs have long been recognized as a vehicle for exploiting emerging opportunities associated with societal need, we have little understanding of how entrepreneurs will discover and develop those opportunities that lie beyond the pull of existing markets. Thus, while the case for entrepreneurship as a panacea for transitioning towards sustainable development society-wide is valid, there exists major gaps in our knowledge of whether and how this process will actually unfold. This paper focuses on: (i) Factors that challenge the teaching of entrepreneurship education within the Higher Education Institutions to engender sustainable development and venturesome youths; (ii) Strategies to employ in addressing these challenges. Factors that Challenge the Teaching of Entrepreneurship Education in Higher Education Institutions; (iii) Imperatives and outcomes of entrepreneurship education and the state of entrepreneurship education in Higher Education Institutions
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship education, Higher Education Institution, Venturesome Youths Sustainable Development
The Relevance of Entrepreneurship Education to the Development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMES) In Nigeria (Published)
Incorporation of entrepreneurship education as a course and subject into the educational curricular of vocational studies, secondary, tertiary institutions and entrepreneurship agencies has become a globally accepted initiative to address the increasing unemployment rates. This study assessed the state of entrepreneurship education and the impact on the development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria. The study observed an insignificant correlation between the existing Nigerian educational system where entrepreneurship education is optional and restricted to only tertiary institutions and entrepreneurship development. It also observed that the withdrawal of entrepreneurship education from the nation’s tertiary educational curriculum would be of little or no effect on the efforts in curbing employment in Nigeria. The paper puts to test, the preceding assertions with the aid of Kruskal Wallis test. From the test, the paper refutes the former assertions on the reasoning that their P-values were less than 5% level of being deemed to be significant. Based on its findings, the study therefore concludes that for entrepreneurship education to be effective in addressing unemployment in Nigeria, it should be incorporated into the nation’s educational system right from secondary school.
Keywords: Bank of Industry (BOI), Educational Curricular, Entrepreneurship education, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN
Entrepreneurial Education: A Panacea for Youth Unemployment in Nigeria (Published)
The progress of a nation is a function of the level of the resourcefulness of the people which to a great extent, relates to the level of quality of the training and purposeful development of education in that nation. Such progress or development could only occur when an individual in the society is gainfully employed and per capital income is enhanced. This could only be possible when government educational policies are geared towards a functional education that can lead to job creation and also self reliance. Entrepreneurship education is a means through which government could attain such development in the society. Therefore, this paper examines how the role of entrepreneurship education could help in job creation in Nigeria. The challenges of quality entrepreneurship education were also discussed. Finally, the paper made some suggestions on how to overcome the challenges so as to reduce unemployment and enhances job creation in Nigeria.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship education, Youth Unemployment, and job creation
THE SUCCESS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION INITIATIVE AND THE FACTOR OF CONGRUENCE BETWEEN THE OBJECTIVES OF POLICYMAKERS AND IMPLEMENTERS: THE CASE OF SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY LEVEL INITIATIVE (Published)
The aim of this study was to investigate from the perspective of the academics implementing the Scottish University level entrepreneurship education, the effects of lack of convergence between the objectives of policymakers and that of the implementers of the initiative on the success of the initiative. It emerged from the study that most of the academics are of the opinion that entrepreneurship education at the university level would not necessarily result in increasing business start-ups, and so the academics’ objectives for the courses/programmes are not wholly in line with that of the policymakers, leading to a near failure of the initiative as graduate businesses are not in the biotechnology industries as desired by the policymakers but in restaurants and retailing. In view of the Scottish experience of lack of objectives congruence which partly account for the poor outcome of the initiative, governments that may be contemplating initiating similar schemes should have their objectives made clear to the implementing institutions; and there should also be a clearly defined relationship and channels of communication in order to ensure transparency and effective implementation and monitoring.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship education, Objectives Congruence, Scottish Initiative