MENTORSHIP IN BUSINESS EDUCATION AND STUDENTS’ ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS DEVELOPMENT IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to determine the mentorship in Business Education and students` entrepreneurial skills development in Rivers State. Two research questions and two hypotheses were developed for the study. The research design adopted in the study was descriptive research design. The population of the study comprised of 1,090 Business Education students in Rivers State University and Ignatius Ajuru University of Education. The sample size of the study consisted of 327 students. The research questions were answered   using mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested with z-test at the level of 0.05 significance. Thus, a total of 327 copies of questionnaire were distributed to the respondents. The research instrument used for garnering of data was titled: “School-Industry Partnership in Business Education Questionnaire”. The instrument was validated by three experts in Business Education and in the field of Measurement and Evaluation. The instrument was tested for reliability and a coefficient of 0.81 was obtained which showed that the instrument was reliable. It was discovered that, mentorship and conferences in Business Education lead to students’ entrepreneurial skills development in Rivers State. Based on the findings, the following recommendations were made; Business Educators in Rivers State should intensify and strengthen the Business Education students through proper supervision, enlightenment, conferences and workshops. This will obviously help to broaden the students’ knowledge about the programme and also accentuate their entrepreneurial skills and experiences.

Keywords: Mentorship, Business Education, Entrepreneurship, Skills, Development