The Role of Entrepreneurship Education in Empowering Nigerian Youths
Chapter One
Objectives of the Study
The broad objective of this study is to examine the impact analysis of entrepreneurship development on youth empowerment in Lokoja metropolis, while the specific objectives are as follows:
- Toexamine the relationship between current preoccupation with university education and rising youth unemployment.
- Toascertain reasoned policies embarked on by the state government towards creating a better future for the youths.
- To offer functional education for the youth that will enable them to be self-employed and self-reliant.
- To proffer solution to the problem of entrepreneurs in Lokoja metropolis.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
This chapter presents the theoretical/conceptual framework as well as the review of the previous studies on entrepreneurship and youth empowerment
Conceptual Framework
According to Bello (2013), entrepreneurship is about innovation as entrepreneurs introduce new combinations of factors of production, including hired labor with the increase in the number of entrepreneurs leading to an increase in economic growth. This positive effect is due to their skills and their ability to innovate. For instance, Balthelt (2015) states that entrepreneur fined new combinations of existing assets, new niches and market needs, which enable entrepreneurs to efficiently raise productivity. Also, Ayo & Adam (2012) are of the view that entrepreneurship increases economic growth and diversity, new network creation, cooperation, provides a more fluid information exchange, introduces important innovations by entering markets with new products or production processes.
Entrepreneurship training is a form of training given to someone who intends to run a business with the aim of making financial gains. An entrepreneur is someone who starts a new business or arranges business deals in order to make money, often in a way that involves financial risks (Longman, 2013).
In the writings of Odah (2014), entrepreneurship is a practical creativeness, which combines resources and opportunities in new ways. It involves the application of personal qualities, finance and other resources within the environment of business success.
Similarly, Emmanuel (2012) explained entrepreneurship as the willingness and ability of an individual to seek an investment opportunity, establish an enterprise based on this, and run it successfully. It is concerned with creating opportunity and meeting the needs of individuals; a process of identifying gaps in one’s immediate environment (community and society at large) and bringing together resources in an innovative way to fill those gaps.
Entrepreneurship has been recognized as an important aspect and functioning of organization and economic (Dickson 2008). It contributes in an immeasurable way towards creating new job, wealth creation, poverty reduction and income generating for both government and individuals.
Paul (2013) argued that entrepreneurship is more than “starting a business”.it is a process through which individuals identify opportunities, allocate resources and create value. This creation of value is often through the identification unmet needs or through the identification of opportunities for change. It is the act of being an entrepreneur which is seen as “one who undertakes innovations with finance and business acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods hence entrepreneurs see “problems” as opportunities” and then take action to identify the solution to those problems and the customers who will pay to have those young people and build on their strong spirit of risk taking through entrepreneurship development.
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CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter explicitly describes all the vital strategies used in achieving the aim and objectives of this research. It focused on the research design, population of the study, sample size and sampling techniques, instrument for data collection, method of data collection and method of data analysis. The main focus of the research is to examine the role of entrepreneurship development on youth empowerment in Lokoja local government area in Kogi state.
Research Design
According to Kothari (2004), research design is defined as the arrangement of conditions for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims at combining relevance to the research purpose with economy in procedure. The research design adopted for this study is survey design. The study employed the survey method in which the primary source of collection of data was by the use of structured questionnaire administered to relevant representatives and analyzing same to obtain results which confirm or reject research questions on the study.
Population of the study
The Population of the study consist of 500 Entrepreneurs and small scale businesses within lokoja Local Government Area, Kogi State. (Npower Wealth Association Lokoja, 2025). Random sampling is used. The choice of random sampling method is by virtue of the fact that it gives equal opportunity or a fair representation disposition to all members of any given population of study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA
Introduction
This chapter deals with the presentation and analysis of data obtained from the questionnaires administered to the respondents. A detailed data analysis was carried out using percentile, relative importance index and chi- square for hypothesis testing with the aid of Microsoft Excel and SPSS.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY OF MAJOR FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
This chapter presents the summary of major findings as well as conclusions and recommendation.
Summary of major findings
This project work has supported the idea that entrepreneurship contributes positively to economic development and is a panacea to the problem of youth unemployment in Lokoja. A positive interaction between growth and entrepreneurship is grounded on the innovation and arbitrage activities that entrepreneurs convey. The roles played by entrepreneurs in economic development cannot be over emphasized as they are engines that drive the social and economic development of a country through their activities that create jobs and induce growth. In the case of Lokoja, Kogi State, although various measures have been geared towards promoting entrepreneurship skills, the spirit of entrepreneurship is yet to be fully developed. Also, the lack of serious minded entrepreneurs has been acknowledged to be the bane of underdevelopment in state compared to other state like Kano, Lagos and Abuja, whose economy are regarded as “emerging economies”. Therefore, to achieve the desired result, there is need for specific steps to be taken so as to facilitate individual empowerment particularly among young people and other vulnerable groups via government putting in place pragmatic policies.
This research work has attempted to look closely at entrepreneurship as a panacea to youth unemployment in lokoja. The unemployed population constitutes a growing proportion of the Nigerian population. The youth population faces a relatively higher level of unemployment than their prime age counterparts. Significant differences exist within the cohort across location (urban/rural) and education. While the unemployment rate averaged 8.8 per cent in the 1980s in the urban area, the rural rate during the corresponding period was 4.8 per cent. In the 1990s the rate in the urban areas averaged 4.9 per cent compared to 2.5 per cent in the rural area. However, between 2000 and 2004, the rate of unemployment in the rural area overtook the urban rates as the comparable figure during the period in the rural area averaged 14.8 per cent compared to 12.4 per cent in the urban area.
Available estimates showed that the national unemployment rate in 2009 and 2010 was 12.9 percent and 16.1 percent respectively. In 2008, the unemployment rate was 12.8 percent. The rise in the unemployment rate was largely attributed to the increased number of school graduates with no matching job opportunities. A freeze on employment in many public and private sector institutions as well as the slow disbursement of capital budget by the federal government is responsible for high unemployment rate in Nigeria. This shift in the composition of unemployment in Nigeria since 2000 is very instructive, as it has brought to the fore the inadequacies of the received theory to explain the unemployment phenomenon in the country. Thus, there is the need for creativity policy formulation to stem the phenomenon.
Furthermore, the shift toward growing rate of unemployment among graduates since 1995 requires a timely policy intervention. One of the possible ways out of the quagmire is to adapt an educational training that will focus on self-employment, as well as ensure the highest quality control in the educational sector, so that graduates can easily get employment globally. In this direction, the recent world university rating, which saw none of the Nigerian universities in the first 50 in Africa, is a sad commentary and the government should invest massively in the upgrading of the existing educational infrastructure, while new ones should be established as the need arises. The government should take advantage of the current favourable world oil prices to invest in infrastructures that will create the enabling environment for the private sector to become the engine of growth.
Many factors contribute to the unemployment situation in the labour market. GDP growth has been unstable due to poor economic management by successive military regimes, as well as some exogenous factors, including drastic decline in oil prices. The current policy emphasis to address the employment challenge through the promotion of the private sector, expanding investment to improve productivity in agriculture and introduce off-farm non- agricultural activities for the purpose of employment diversification in rural areas should be sustained and institutionalized. The role of the private sector has improved in recent years, but compared to the daunting economic and social problems the country is experiencing, much remains to be done. This is particularly clear, with regard to capacity utilization in the manufacturing sector.
Conclusion of the study
It is the responsibility of every government to provide the citizens with the critical skills and resources to realize their full potential. To move forward Nigeria must take investment in human capacity development (education and skill training) very seriously as no nation can compete effectively in the emerging computerized global market place with poorly educated and unskilled workers. Kogi State need to adopt a skill-oriented educational principle because how quickly a nation recovers from the present global economic predicament depends on the strength of its institutions and infrastructure, ingenuity of the leaders and productivity of workers (Dike, 2009). Any administration that can give vocational and technical education the attention it deserves, stimulate the weak economy and create jobs for the army of unemployed youth, will occupy an enviable spot in the nation’s political and economic history. Scarcity of jobs combined with lack of relevant job skills and knowledge causes higher degree of youth unemployment. The government should not be expected to tackle the problems facing technical education alone. Although UNESCO has assisted Nigeria over the years in tackling the problems facing vocational and technical education, more assistance is needed from international partners, the private sector and NGOs and other stakeholders. The policy makers should implement reasoned policies to deal with the debilitating deficiencies in the education sector instead of wasting time and resource on the false rebranding campaigns. The policy makers should understand that simply making noise about their ‘Vision’ and ‘Re-branding’ programs will not solve Nigeria socio-political and economic problems. The leaders could salvage Nigeria’s image by re-branding their outlook to do the right thing. The choices we make have a great role of the quality of our lives. Nigeria is brimming with untapped talents. Without a fundamental shift in values, beliefs and thinking, and without appropriate investment in human capital development and without technological capability, Nigeria will continue to only dream of becoming an industrialized nation.
Recommendations
Based on the findings, the following recommendations are made:
- Education is the key to a successful life; hence, it should be directed towards possessionof entrepreneurship skills rather than the delivery of theories, so that graduates can be self-employed rather than searching for non-existing jobs. Although this is gradually being emphasized in higher institutions, the level of awareness and implementation is still very low.
- Government sometimes launch conflicting policies. On the one hand, it introduces policies aimed at generating employment, on the other, it is implementing policies aimed at reducing employment, such as privatization, recapitalization and so on. This should not be so.
- There is hardly any economy where the highest employer is the Where this is the case, the rate of unemployment will be high; the private sector needs to be encouraged to generate employment. This sector includes limited liability companies and multinational industries.
- There is the need to intensify the campaign on family planning and population growth rate, as the number of graduates turned out yearly is frightening, especially as it is obvious that the output from higher education cannot be absorbed into the labour market.
- The need for investment is paramount, but when interest rates are high people will not be disposed towards taking loans, especially with inconsistent government policies and unfavorable economic Efforts should be geared towards making loans available to genuine investors at reasonable interest rates and on a long-term basis.
- Unemployment is a serious economic problem. No country thrives or develops when it is bedeviled with unemployment. One of the effects of unemployment is increased crime rates, especially among the youths who are frustrated and In cognizance of the fact that the youths who are frustrated and restless. In cognizance of the fact that the youths are the leaders of tomorrow, we may ask ourselves: what kind of tomorrow are we building in Nigeria?
- Kogi Government and other relevant agencies should ensure that there is stable power supply and enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
Suggestion for further studies
There is need for further research on this topic on other local Government Area of Kogi State beside Lokoja. The study should be repeated to involve more respondents so that the sample could be more representative of the actual population. Also, another instrument beside Questionnaire should be used to collect information as well as for analysis.
Contribution to Knowledge
The importance of entrepreneurship development and youth empowerment in lokoja cannot be over-emphasized. However, this research will be relevant and contributes to the body of knowledge in the following ways; it will serve a number of purposes for all relevant stakeholders. It will act as a reference material to the state government and policy makers. The study will serve to demonstrate how some of the challenges of entrepreneurs can be overcome. The findings and recommendation of this study will be of great contribution to the body of knowledge on the subject matter. It would also aid other researchers to carry out more studious research on areas not covered by the study. Many studies do not adequately bring out the policy implication of their results; this study will fill that gap. Finally, it is believed that the study will not only contribute to the existing literature on entrepreneurs and economic growth but it will also provide policy makers first-hand information on how best to initiate policies and programmes that will enhance effective youth empowerment and entrepreneurship develop.
REFERENCES
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- Albert, I.O. (2000). Economics of youth criminality. Paper presented at the Methodological Workshop on Economics of Criminality in South- Western Nigeria, at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. CODESRIA/Macarthur Foundation.
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