ENCOURAGING ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION AMONG STUDENTS OF TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN IMO STATE: CHALLENGES AND STRATEGIES

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education is globally viewed as the engine of economic growth and development. It is an education and training which develops students to use their creativity, possess the ability to recognize and evaluate business opportunities, take initiative, responsibility, risks and appropriate actions to
succeed. Two research questions guided the study and one null hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted the survey research design. The area of the study was Imo State. The population for the study consisted of 50 operators of small scale businesses in Owerri senatorial district
of Imo State. A 24 item structured questionnaire was used for the purpose of collecting data for the study. The questionnaire was subjected to face validation by three experts. The reliability of the instrument was established using Cronbach Alpha reliability method to ascertain the internal consistency of the instrument and coefficient of 0.87 and 0.89. The study discovered that
entrepreneurship education equips the unemployed youths with the skills, with which to be self-reliant. Also, the paper recommended that entrepreneurship education and exposure will enable students to have positive attitudes towards choosing entrepreneurship as a career. Educational programmes at all levels
of education should be made relevant to provide the youths the needed entrepreneurial skills. It also recommended that the Nigerian Government should give adequate attention to full blown entrepreneurial education in Nigeria.