EFFECTS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY    

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY     

1.4     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.5     RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

1.6     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

1.7     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

1.8     LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

1.9     DEFINITION OF TERMS     

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1     MEANING OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

2.2     COMPONENTS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

2.3     THE IMPORTANCE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

2.4     ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION AND ITS IMPORTANCE

2.5     ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION AND THE ENTREPRENEUR

2.6     THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1     INTRODUCTION

3.2     RESEARCH DESIGN

3.3     STUDY POPULATION

3.4     SAMPLE AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUE

3.5     DATA FOR THE STUDY: INSTRUMENTATION

3.5.1  INSTRUMENTATION

3.5.2  VALIDITY OF INSTRUMENT

3.6     METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS

CHAPTER FOUR

4.0              DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

4.1     INTRODUCTION

4.2     DATA ANALYSIS (QUESTIONNAIRE)

CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1     SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

5.2     CONCLUSION

5.3     RECOMMENDATION

REFERENCES

QUESTIONNAIRE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY        

Many scholars have defined entrepreneurship: according to Venkataraman, it is an activity that concerns the exploration, assessment, and usage of opportunities to present new commodities, methods, process, and resources via unestablished endeavour. (Venkataraman 1997, 120; Shane & Venkataraman 2000, 219; Shane 2003, 4). Onuoha (2007, 22) defined entrepreneurship as the act of beginning new organisations or renewing developed organisations, especially new businesses generally in response to unique opportunities. The business dictionary characterised it as the capability and eagerness to advance, coordinate and deal with a business operation alongside any of its danger keeping in mind the end goal to make a benefit. Filion (2011) proposed the definition of entrepreneurship should have six main components: innovation, opportunity recognition, risk management, action, use of resources and added value. He defines an entrepreneur as an instinctive, clever, industrious performing artist who can perceive and create dangerous operation opportunities with potential for development, and who increases the value of what as of now exists by setting up exercises that include a rare utilisation of assets. (Filion 2011, 47.) Entrepreneurship is an act of identifying and exploiting opportunities. A perspective viewed as a compelling means not just of battling unemployment, poverty and under-employment in the developing countries, but also as a technique for fast economic advancement in both developed and developing countries (Ubong 2013. 115 - 117).

Scholars have also defined entrepreneur using different terms. Schumpeter characterised entrepreneurs as an individual misuse advertise opportunity through specialised as well as hierarchical development. These illustrations present an entrepreneur as somebody who exhibits initiative and innovative reasoning, can coordinate social and monetary components to turn assets and situations to beneficial use and acknowledges risk and disappointment. Entrepreneurs search for a way to create value, by creating, identifying and exploiting innovative ideas, procedures or markets. Entrepreneurial activity is an essential indicator and a key component in economic growth. Hence, it has a significant role to play in employment generation, innovation, increasing sales, and diversification of the economy and reduction of unemployment. (Carree & Thurik 2010, 561- 566).

Entrepreneurship education has continued to feature as a captivating theme in local summits and international conferences because of its potency as tool for mitigating unemployment and other social-economic challenges inhibiting sustainable development in all parts of the globe. Inclusive of entrepreneurship education into curricula of tertiary institutions started in the United States of America as far back as 1947 (Kuratko, 2013) unlike Nigeria where it is a recent development that dates back to 2006 (Yahya, 2011; Gabadeen and Raimi, 2012). Within a few decades (1947-1980s), over 300 universities had introduced entrepreneurship education into their array of courses. By early 1990s the number of tertiary institutions running entrepreneurship programmes increased to 1,050 schools (Kuratko, 2013).

Nigeria adopted entrepreneurship education to accelerate economic growth and development.

This reflected in Nigeria’s national policy on education which states that education is the most important instrument for propelling change, as no fundamental change can occur in any society except through educational revolution that impact on the intellects (FGN, 2008).

Entrepreneurship education is not a new phenomenon in the annals of Nigeria; it has always been an age-long tradition, a culture and a habit that has consistently been transferred from one generation to another within the diverse ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. However, with rising population growing at geometric proportion relative to job placement that is growing at arithmetic progression, it became obvious that the nation’s formal education is fuelling unemployment, crime and cycle of poverty as graduates could not be absorbed. It then dawned on government that there is a dire need to redress the socio-economic implications of idleness and hopelessness. In order to check the rising unemployment, surging crime rate and incidence of poverty, different government administrations introduced diverse poverty reduction policies (PRPs) to redress the problems and challenges highlighted above (Eriki and Okafor, 2005), thereby making Nigerians creative, innovative and resourceful to create more wealth and improve their general wellbeing.

In discussing entrepreneurship with regards to education however, we are attempting to show the connection between innate and acquired abilities. Whereas some individuals are born with certain traits that allow them transform ideas into reality, others are able to do so via the process of training and capacity development (Umoren, Akpan and Ntekop, 2012; Onuaha, 2008;Umoren, 2010; Umoren and Ntekop, 2010 etc). It is for this reason that the Federal government of Nigeria has made it mandatory for entrepreneurship to be taught to all university students across the country. This directive is based on the fundamental assumption that an entrepreneurially minded individual will rather than search for elusive jobs, become a job creator for others. The understanding here is that entrepreneurship can be taught, learnt, and applied in a manner that enhances socioeconomic transformation which ultimately defaults into national development. Therefore, this study focuses on the effects of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurship development.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Education and training is one of the elements contributing to entrepreneurship in a country. Hence, in this studt the focus will be on the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial activity. The importance for this relationship is additionally acknowledged by Rideout and Gray (2013), who state that there are three major barriers to entrepreneurship: social and cultural barriers, lack of capital and lack of education.

Entrepreneurship education in Nigeria is faced with a lot of challenges like ineffective implementation of entrepreneurship education curriculum hence the difficulty in achieving its goals, lateness in starting entrepreneurship education in Nigeria; poor funding of entrepreneurship education; and undergraduate students perceiving entrepreneurship education as one of unnecessary electives forced on them by their respective schools. Looking at the above challenges, some institutions and government have failed to prepare these students for self-reliance by not having fully equipped skill acquisition centers, on the other hand, government failing to empower few of them who acquired some skills.

To douse the rising wave of mediocrity in a country, there is need for good and quality education to reduce the risk of unemployment, improve productivity, increase wages, increase technological innovation and economic growth. In addressing the issues concerning the practicability of entrepreneurial education in Nigerian universities, it requires; curriculum review, sensitization and mobilization of institutional support for entrepreneurship education, programme focus and funding together with the political will and stability of the government should be provided for entrepreneurship culture and development. These problems make it glaring that there is a need to carry out a study on the effects of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurship development.

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY  

The general objective of this study is to examine the effects of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurship development, a case study of Ikeja LGA of Lagos state. The specific objectives of this study include the following:

1.     To examine the prevalence of entrepreneurship education among entrepreneurs in Ikeja LGA of Lagos state.

2.     To ascertain the challenges facing entrepreneurship education among entrepreneurs in Ikeja LGA of Lagos state.

3.     To find out the influence of entrepreneurship education on the competency of entrepreneurs in Ikeja LGA of Lagos state.

4.     To determine the strength of entrepreneurship education in creating impact on human capital development in Nigeria.

5.     To find out the effect of entrepreneurship education on the productivity of entrepreneurs in Ikeja LGA of Lagos state.

1.4     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The relevant research questions related to this study include the following