The Effect of Entrepreneurial Education as a Tool for Reducing Unemployment in Nigeria
Chapter One
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The general objective of this study will examine entrepreneurial education as a tool for reducing unemployment in Nigeria while the following are the specific objectives.
- To find out if entrepreneurial education has been a useful tool for reducing unemployment in Nigeria.
- To ascertain if there is compulsory entrepreneurial education for all students in Nigerian higher institutions
- To find out if the available entrepreneurship education in institution can stimulate entrepreneurship skills in future graduates
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
THE CONCEPT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Entrepreneurship is the purposeful activity (including an integrated sequence of decisions) of an individual or group of associated individuals, under-taken to initiate, maintain, or aggrandize a profit-oriented business unit for the production or distribution of economic goods and services (Nwachukwu, 1990). Entrepreneurship at least in all non-authoritarian societies constitute a bridge between society as a whole, especially the non-economic aspect of that society, and the profit oriented institutions established to take off its economic development and to satisfy, as best they can, its economic desires. Schumpeter (1994) defines entrepreneurship as the ability to perceive and undertake business opportunities, taking advantage of scarce resource utilisation. In simplest form, entrepreneurship is the willingness and the ability to seek out investment opportunities and to run an enterprise for profit. In this later sense, entrepreneurship takes premium over capital. It is equally more fundamental than capital because capital formation is the result of entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurs are therefore regarded as central figures in economic development. Their contributions run through labour actions, movement of capital goods and conversion of raw materials into finished products, and ultimately, effectual distribution of the products to final consumers. Entrepreneurs are therefore those who search and discover economic opportunities, marshal the financial and other resources necessary for the development of the opportunities, evaluate alternatives available in the environment and allocate resources to the most profitable ones and as well take the ultimate responsibility for the management and/or successful execution of opportunities. An Entrepreneur is somewhat comfortable with taking and assuming risks which are impassioned with the dream being pursued. He or she knows where to get help, and when it is needed, and as well as being ever ready to receive changes in the business surrounding environment (Schumpeter, 1994). Consequently, universities should commence training high level manpower whose characteristics are usually obsessive, focused, articulate, and resourceful. In this way graduates will turn out typically charismatic leaders, and tend to be introspective in the skills of job creation, wealth generation and innovative skill utilization. Empowering the Nigerian people towards wealth creation, employment generation, poverty reduction and value re-orientation (NEEDS, 2005), is a foremost cardinal point for strategic macro-economic framework. This also reflects in the recent increase in the demand for educational programmes in entrepreneurship in the country’s tertiary institutions, parastatals and non-governmental paradigms. If fully satisfied, this new vision and values would shine the spotlight on small medium scale business activities in Nigeria. Thus, increased education on entrepreneurial skills would create that perfect opportunity to stimulate economic growth. Institutions are therefore to properly train individuals who will have the right tools necessary to commence and grow successful businesses with reduced risk of failure. Entrepreneurship is frequently a scarce resource because entrepreneurs are gap fillers and inputs completers and these are highly scarce talents. David C. McClelland of Harvard University, U.S.A., highlighted this paramount importance of entrepreneurship in his “Need Theory of Entrepreneurship”. McClelland made a comprehensive contribution to the conceptualization of motivators to entrepreneurship development by identifying three types of basic motivating needs which he classified as need for power (n/PWR), and need for affiliation (n/AAF), and need for achievement (n/ACH). Considerable research has been done on method of testing people with respect to these three types of needs, and McClelland and his associates have done substantial research, especially on the need for achievement drive. Research on achievement needs has been noteworthy and is often used by psychologists as a prototype of how knowledge should be researched and discovered in the behavioural science as a way of developing entrepreneurship. All three drives; power, affiliation and achievement, are of relevance to management since all must be recognised to make organised enterprise work well, because such enterprise and its departments represents group of individuals working together to achieve goals, hence the paramount importance of the need for achievement in entrepreneurship development.
THE CONCEPT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
Entrepreneurship education and training becomes very important machinery to meet this national goal. Nevertheless, while it is not absolutely necessary for an individual to obtain entrepreneurship training to be successful, obtaining an entrepreneurial education serves as a tremendous advantage to increasing the chances of success as an entrepreneur. This is because training is still focused and directed at achieving a purpose while education is all encompassing. Thus, great strides are required to be made towards the goal of educating people to become entrepreneurs to enhance economic growth and development.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought the effect of entrepreneurial education as a tool for reducing unemployment in Nigeria
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information on the effect of entrepreneurial education as a tool for reducing unemployment in Nigeria. 200 staff of selected private universities in Ogun state was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was on the effect of entrepreneurial education as a tool for reducing unemployment in Nigeria. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of the entrepreneurial education as a tool for reducing unemployment in Nigeria
Summary
This study was on the effect of entrepreneurial education as a tool for reducing unemployment in Nigeria. Three objectives were raised which included: To find out if entrepreneurial education has been a useful tool for reducing unemployment in Nigeria, to ascertain if there is compulsory entrepreneurial education for all students in Nigerian higher institutions, to find out if the available entrepreneurship education in institution can stimulate entrepreneurship skills in future graduates. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of selected private Universities in Ogun state. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made up senior lecturers, secretaries, junior staff and graduate assistants was used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
Nigeria has a history of economic stagnation that has led to decline in white collar jobs. The inclusion of entrepreneurship course in all disciplines will to a great extent, assist in solving this problems of high unemployment and underemployment. Entrepreneurship education in this paper has been recognized as a key driver in encouraging business start up potentials among graduates (Wilson, Llewellyn and Robertson 2003:9) cited in Mafela (2009:3). Some argue that entrepreneurial capabilities are not inborn and as such entrepreneurship is a behavioural not a personality trait but can be learned. All the same, the attempts at stimulating entrepreneurial activities through formal training and education and therefore assume that they may be enhanced or developed by a guided entrepreneurial education. Others believe that entrepreneurship is inborn, that is, personality trait not behavioural. There are yet others including this author who believe that entrepreneurship is primarily learned by experience and discovery and that entrepreneurial learning should be conceived as a lifelong process, where knowledge is continuously shaped and revised as new experience take place
Recommendation
- All stakeholders must encourage the proposed introduction of Entrepreneurship study across faculties and departments as general courses in the country. The federal government in collaboration with state governments should provide scholarships/bursaries for performing students by way of encouragement.
- Universities should start to commercialize their research findings instead of leaving them in the shelves.
- The National Universities Commission (NUC) should as usual set the minimum benchmark of the courses in Nigerian universities. This development should not be politicized, rather, the entire policy frameworks needed for its sustainability and improvement should be provided so as to salvage Nigeria from the clutches of poverty.
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