Assessment of the Effectiveness of Entrepreneurship Education in Tertiary Institutions in Edo State

Abstract

The tragedy of Nigerian Immigration Service recruitment exercise in 2014 raises doubt about the effectiveness of Entrepreneurship education earmark to abate the graduates’ unemployment challenges in Nigeria. This study therefore, investigated the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education earmarked for self-employment generation among tertiary school graduates in Edo State. It determined the extent to which graduates acquired appropriate entrepreneurial skills necessary for self-employment and how the skills facilitate their self-employment. Two research questions guided the study and one hypothesis was formulated. The descriptive survey research design was adopted. The study population comprised all the 40,333 graduates (2009/2010-2012/2013 Academic Sessions) from the target institutions (universities, polytechnics and colleges of education) and 450 respondents were selected using simple random sampling technique. A 20-item structured questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. The instrument was validated by 4 experts from entrepreneurship, measurement and evaluation. It was equally tested for its reliability using the Cronbach Apha and a reliability value of 0.89 was realized. The data collected were analysed using frequency count and descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and determine the homogeneity of respondents’ opinions while the formulated hypotheses were tested with t-test at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed among others that most of the graduates are still unemployed although they claimed to have acquired appropriate entrepreneurial skills from the school training experiences. It equally revealed that among those employed, only few are self-employed as against the expected. Against this backdrop it was recommended among others that entrepreneurial training should be practically oriented and more emphasis should be laid on students’ entrepreneurial intentions.

Key Words: Assessment, Effectiveness, Entrepreneurship Education, Tertiary Institutions, Edo State