Title: IMPACT OF BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION ON THE GROWTH OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES AND REDUCTION OF GRADUATES UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA
Authors:
OLAFARE, Elkanah Ayodeji, JIMOH, Abiodun Ganiu, Falana, Helen Omowunmi and Kehinde Temitope Mercy
Abstract:
Business education is an education with the ultimate philosophy of training students for self employment. Also, the ultimate goal of introducing entrepreneurship education in our tertiary institution is to produce graduates with great intention to establish self business and self sustained and reduce unemployment. It is glaring from the foregoing that business education is a programme that promotes entrepreneurship because it equipped its recipients with necessary skills for discovering viable business windows and opportunities, business management, financial management, product marketing and other skills needed for business survival. Despite the importance of these programmers, graduate are still not interesting in business establishment thereby increasing the rate of unemployment in the country. This paper therefore seeks to answer the question “what then is the impact of business and entrepreneurship education on the growth of small and medium scale enterprises and reduction of unemployment. To achieve this, three specific purposes and three research questions guided the study. A total of 375 respondents consisting of 350 graduates and 25 entrepreneurs responded to the questionnaire developed and validated by the researcher and data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation. The findings revealed that through business and entrepreneurship education, skills such as ability to identify business windows and opportunities; conducting feasibility studies; writing business plan; marketing products or services; managing business entity effective using management strategies; managing financial records of a business outfit; using ICT facilities to conduct business and as well communicate effectively with clients are acquired. It was found that business and entrepreneurship education have the potentials of ensuring the growth of small and medium scale enterprises and reduction of graduate unemployment in the country. It was concluded that business and entrepreneurship education impact the growth of SMEs and helps to reduce unemployment but the reason for the current state of SME sector may not be unconnected to the unfavourable business environment which discourage many graduates to establish small businesses despite the acquired skills. It was recommended among other things that government should create enabling environment for businesses to triumph.
Keywords: Business Education; Entrepreneurship Education; Small and Medium Scale Enterprises; Graduate Unemployment.
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