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ROLE OF TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN PROMOTING ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      BACKGROUND OF STUDY

The concept of entrepreneurship as an organised knowledge came into being about a hundred years ago (MURTHY 1989). Entrepreneurship has been emphasized in many countries as a way of boosting economic growth and job opportunities. As entrepreneurship is becoming popular around the world, its education should be customised according to each country’s cultural context. Entrepreneurship has long been considered a significant factor for socio-economic growth and development due to the fact that it provides job opportunities, offers varieties of consumer goods and services and generally increases national prosperity and competitiveness in the country. In recent years, a wave of interest in entrepreneurship has touched almost every country in the world because of increasing global competition based on agility, creativity and innovation. The increased interest in entrepreneurship can also be attributed to the changing structure of the western economy, the trend to downsize large companies, changing business patterns, and developing market economies in eastern Europe and china. 

Entrepreneurship is now widely accepted as a field of study as it now provides students with motivation, knowledge and skills, which are essential in launching a successful company. However the extent of entrepreneurship education and training in each country is different depending on its unique cultural context and it has been noted that the prevailing culture within an economy or country can impact the level or rate of acceptance of entrepreneurship. Therefore while other entrepreneurship programmes across different countries may have a common focus in terms of new business and creations and also the development of a business plan; there may be differences in emphasis depending upon the particular need of the participants, the country or the resources available.

Therefore how a country can customize entrepreneurship education according to its cultural context is clearly a very important issue. A wide range of critical success factors for entrepreneurship identified by previous empirical studies in different countries support the importance of the customization of entrepreneurship education. The purpose of this study is to examine the relative strength of each countries student in terms of factors relating to pedagogical effect of entrepreneurship education.

The prosperity and progress of a nation depends on the quality of its people. If they are enterprising, ambitious, and courageous enough to bear the risk, the society develop quickly. Such people are identified as entrepreneurs and their character reflects entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is no monopoly of any religion or community. Entrepreneurial potential can be found and developed anywhere irrespective of age, qualification, experience or socio-economic background, only efforts are required in the right direction.  Entrepreneurship may not be regarded as a sufficient condition for growth activity. Hence it must be given top priority in the national programmes of a country. It is widely acknowledged in entrepreneurship literature that entrepreneurship is about people who realize new opportunities. Entrepreneurs are persistent, passionate, adaptable and are able to take risks. As a result entrepreneurship can occur in a range of environments .However, at the core of entrepreneurship lies the creation of new business ventures by individuals. Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is the lifeblood of the economy. It is the cradle of job and wealth creation in the most innovative ways. It is therefore innovative that we recognised any contribution that the entrepreneur makes to our economy and development. A small business unit is thus an enterprise, its owner, an entrepreneur, and his activities, are the entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a human activity development. It indicates to the spirit of enterprise such as spirit transforms the man from a nomad to cattle rarer, to a settled agriculturist, to a trader, and an industrialist.

Considerable attention has focused on the definition of the term “entrepreneur”. (Schumpeter) 1959, considered the entrepreneur as an innovator. He says that entrepreneurship is the “carrying of new combinations we call enterprise”, the individuals whose function is to carry them out are called the entrepreneurs. The new combination focuses on five aspects:

1.     The introduction of new goals.

2.     New methods of production.

3.     Opening up of new markets.

4.     New sources of supply of raw materials

5.      New industrial organisations.

An entrepreneur is a person, while entrepreneurship is the process of its actual working. It is also equated with establishment and management of small business firms. The role played by entrepreneurship in the development of western countries has made the people of developing countries very much conscious of its importance in the programme of rapid economic development. People have begun to realize that for achieving the goal of development it is necessary to increase both the quantitative and qualitative entrepreneurship in the country. The qualitative entrepreneurship implies the stress on innovating and the quantitative implies the stress on imitating entrepreneurship. Both of them contribute stimulus for development. It is also known that even though a country has resources - labour, technology, capital and raw material etc, but these remain under-explored in the absence of the active and enthusiastic entrepreneurs, who have the ability to organize the various factors of productions.

The role of small scale industries has been emphasized from time to time, keeping in view the overall plan objectives of the economic growth coupled with social justice. The small sector has distinct advantage of low investment with high potential for employment generation. It is also brings out dispersal of industries in rural and semi-urban areas with definite advantage of equitable distribution of national income. This sector has been identified in all the National development plans of Nigeria.

It is widely acknowledged that the creation, sustenance and growth of small and medium enterprises (SME) is a key ingredient for the sustainable develoopment of any Nation. The role of SME has also been emphasized from time to time, keeping in view the overall plan objectives of the economic growth coupled with social justies. The small business sector has distinct advantage of low investment with high potential for employment generation. It also brings out dispersal of industries in rural and semi-urban areas with definite advantage of equitable distribution of National income. Consequently, Nigeria, like other similar developping Nations of the world, has initiated a number of sector reforms on SMES aimed at transforming the Nigerian Economy from its present prostrative statue to a highly industrialized one, as achieved by some Asian countries in the second half of the last century. According to LLPO, ETAL, (2004), these reforms aimed at creating employment, reducing poverty and improving the welfare of people, are in agreement with the goals of industrialized countries of the world.There is no concensus on the definition of SMES throughout the world due to differences in general economic development and the prevailing social conditions within each country (Pacific Economic Coorperation Council 2003). Thus, various indicies such as number of employees, invested capital, asset employed, sales volume, production capability and a combination of these variables are ued by various countries to classify a business under the SME sector (Ownalah, 1999; and Allal, 1999).

Essien (2001) defines a small scale enterprise as an enterprise with a total capital employed of over N1.5m but not more than N50million, including working capital but excluding cost of land and/or a labour size of 11-100workers. This depicts small businesses. However, majority of small business in Nigeria might not be able to boast of capital employed of N1.5m due to low per capital income of the citizens. Small business is defiined by Holmes (2001) as a business whichis independently owned and operated with close control over operations and decisions held by the owners. Business equity is not publicly traded and business financing is personally guranteed by the owners. The business will have less than twenty employees. This Study align with this definition as it tries to capture small business in terms of ownership and operations.

The Federal Government of Nigeria since 1960 has put in place different kind of institutional frame work to promote small scale enterprises in the country. These include the establishment of industrial development centers (IDCS), the small scale industries credit scheme, credit guidelines to financial institution, working for yourself/entrepreneurship development programme (WFYP/EDP) National Economic Reconstruction Fund and others

So the overall industrial policy of the country continued with the basic frame work provided by the National development plans from time to time, adjustment have been made in the policy to meet the emerging needs and challenges of industrial development. The Government continues to protect small scale enterprises vis-à-vis the large ones through its policy of reserving industries for exclusive manufacturing in small scale sector.

Financial assistance to small business sector is also available in the form of credit scheme i.e. small scale and medium industries credit scheme (SSIC), small scale enterprises loan scheme (SMES).In 1999 Banker’s committee came up with the small and medium industries Equity investment scheme (SMIEIS). Through this, banks are to be set aside 10 percent of their profit before tax for the purpose of entering into equity financing of small and medium enterprises. To what extent do Nigeria small and medium businessmen fulfill the role as entrepreneur in accordance to the definition of entrepreneur given above.

Nigerian businessmen and women are innovative in assessing opportunities and in the ability to nearly as effective in product innovation. They tend to concentrate on the rapid adoption and imitation of foreign innovation and know-how rather than to engage in basic research themselves. For example most manufacturers usually make products based on foreign brand label under license.   However, there have been arguments as to whether or not the entrepreneurship development introduced into the curriculum of Nigerian tertiary institutions, is enough to impact in students , the needed small management skills that will enable them to set up their businesses after graduation . Entrepreneurship is globally accepted to be critical to economic growth and development in an emerging economy such as ours. it is seen as the driving force behind development. Therefore imparting in students the small scale management skills development through entrepreneurship education in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions could be a panacea for the growing unemployment in Nigeria. Thus, knowing its merits and contributions to economic development, there is needed to teach and encourage entrepreneurship among students at all levels of education in order to stimulate the spirit of resourcefulness among the youths. According to Adavbiele and Imeokparia (2006), the training on entrepreneurship will help to check the imbalance in the educational system, which seems to be producing the wrong mix of manpower stock. The production of graduates from various disciplines without monitoring the manpower needs of the nation coupled with poor state of the Nigerian economy are identified as largely responsible for the high rate of unemployment.

MEANING OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION

Entrepreneur is a French word meaning to undertake. The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary describes an entrepreneur as “a person who makes money by starting or running business especially when this involves taking financial risks.” This definition presents an entrepreneur as not only a risk taker but also as an independent person and owner of a business or businesses. Also, the definition situates an entrepreneur within the precinct of the capitalist economy with an eye on profits or an operator whose position can only be understood within the perspective of a private sector-driven economy. But in the view of Shailer (1994), it amounts to a narrow and limited thinking to view the entrepreneur within these perspectives. Shailer recognizes the existence and roles of those he described as “social entrepreneurs” who own and run social organizations structured to achieve ethical values, charity and community development without targeting profit. Therefore, in the opinion of Shailer, entrepreneur has wider scope in meaning depending on his drive, interest and target. However within the context and scope of this paper we have to suffice with the definition that presents an entrepreneur as a person who prospects and seeks to explore and create a business enterprise with prospects for expansion and profit.

Akpomi, M, (2009) capturing the spirit and contextual demand of this paper, defines an entrepreneur as “one who starts an enterprise; the one who puts new forms of industry on his feet; the one who shoulders the risks and uncertainty of using economic resources in a new way and the one with the right motivation, energy and ability to build something by his or her efforts”.

Falkang and Alberti (2000) define entrepreneurship education as the process of developing entrepreneurial spirit through the development and application of relevant and entrepreneur-based educational curriculum. More importantly, it involves giving the recipient of education the understanding and capacity or the unique orientation, behaviour, skills and attribute to pursue entrepreneurial ventures.

Entrepreneurship education has been applied in various forms and scopes in different countries thereby bringing about variant of definitions. But a common denominator has emerged from the existing definitions to the effect that a broad concept of Entrepreneurship Education sees it as opening up a person's potentials and providing opportunities to acquire the appropriate skills and competences needed for him to explore, sustain and expand his or her own business or businesses. This entails creativity, innovation, showing initiatives and risk-taking as well as the ability to plan and manage projects in order to achieve objectives.

The inclination for entrepreneurial behaviour is not the exclusive preserve of an individual. Different individuals have different capabilities for acquiring and applying entrepreneurial behaviours, skills and abilities. These behaviours and skills can be learned, developed and practiced through the instrumentality of education, hence entrepreneurship education.

Entrepreneurship education will develop and sharpen the potentials and skills of the individual necessary for him to operate as an independent mind and infuse into him the spirit of enterprise in this era in which the recipe for rapid economic development is found in creating the enabling environment for private sector-driven economy to thrive. 

1.2      STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

According to some studies, education is one of the critical factors that distinguish entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs. The school and the educational system play a vital role in predicting and developing entrepreneurial traits. The schools curricula should focus on the anatomy and independence, innovation and creativity as well as risk taking, the pedagogical approach should encourage students to make decisions and accept mistakes as part of the learning process.

The ability to predict entrepreneurial traits draws our attention to the significant role of entrepreneurship training and development including the mentorship and the grooming process in pre and early adulthood.  Based on the point that home – education from parents has significant importance on the individuals life, entrepreneurial parents can be included in the educational category. Also, many organisations allocate a great deal of resources to educate their members through external as well as internal education opportunities. Therefore, previous work experience can be included in the category of education in broad sense. Consequently, we can conclude that the relative importance of education is very high. Studies have shown how experiential type learning can play a critical role in developing entrepreneurial traits. Entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial efficacy are considered to be two important factors influencing students’ intention and success in becoming entrepreneurs. This study was conducted to determine the entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial efficacy of 3000 students following technical subjects in the secondary schools of Malaysia (2003). The findings indicate that students scored high on entrepreneurial attitude components including self-esteem cognition, achievement cognition, and achievement affect. Entrepreneurship/s education promotes the intention of venture creation because entrepreneurship related knowledge and skills simulate an individual’s motivation to create a new venture. A growing body of   academic research has examined the effectiveness of entrepreneurship training and support initiatives, with recent studies focusing on the provision of training and other skills development opportunities. An important theme that has emerged from this work is the failure of many programmes and initiatives to take on board the cultural, social, and educational background of the entrepreneurs in developing training and support systems. 

1.3      RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In the course of this research, there were some basic questions that were encountered, some of which are as follows:

1.              How does the institution affect the student’s attitude towards entrepreneurship?

2.              How entrepreneurship does contribute to the rate of employment in the country?

3.       Is entrepreneurship a necessity in a country like Nigeria?

1.4       OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objective of the study is to know the role of tertiary institutions in Promoting entrepreneurship in Nigeria institute of Journalism Lagos State.

The specific objectives are to:

1.     Examine roles played by institutions in promoting entrepreneurship

2.     Ascertain rate of entrepreneurship Education in Nigeria institutions, student attitude to entrepreneurship and measures put in place to promote its teaching.

Though Entrepreneurship Education has been part and parcel of educational activities in many countries of the world for over 100 years, it has just been introduced in the Nigerian tertiary institutions. Entrepreneurship Education, therefore, is not without its challenges. Many tertiary institutions are yet to have departments of Entrepreneurship Education. The programme proceeds through a rigorous process some of which are: identification of business activities, undertaking feasibility studies, sourcing the required funds, identifying the markets for the products of entrepreneurship activities, undertaking the production process where necessary, providing logistics and personnel.

So, one of the major challenges now confronting Entrepreneurship Education in Nigeria is identifying and recruiting the qualified teachers who have the appropriate knowledge and pedagogy to impart Enterprise skills and competences in the students. Entrepreneurship Education requires the use of active learning methods that place the learner at the centre of educational process and enable them to take responsibility for their learning experiment and learn about themselves. Such methods have been shown to make learning experiences richer and to have positive benefits for students in terms of improving their motivation with positive effects from their engagement with learning and long-term attainment. Thus teachers need the professional competences to be able to guide students through the learning process rather than the traditional talk-chalk method of communicating knowledge and information.

In a country where money is concentrated in few hands and given the difficulties in assessing bank loans due to some strident conditions that exist in all the banks, graduates of Entrepreneurship Education will surely face the challenges of raising funds to begin their own businesses. Also, identifying a wide range of entrepreneurship ventures and building comprehensive curricula from there is yet another critical area of concern for educators in this enterprise-based knowledge. Entrepreneurship Education involves a comprehensive learning process and outcome that should key into the national development plans. Therefore, a far-reaching strategic document and curricula on Entrepreneurship Education would not materialize unless a holistic approach is taken towards the plan and implementation of Entrepreneurship Education.

Prospects

However, the advocates of entrepreneurship Education including this writer are convinced on its relevance to the modern society from point of view of the fact that people do better when they operate from the ambience of freedom for personal endeavours backed by a sense of self-esteem, personal satisfaction and fulfillment. Also, Entrepreneurship Education at an informal level is known to have sustained, over time, the service sector of the Nigerian economy. Many successful entrepreneurs in Nigeria have, at one time or the other, passed through some masters under the apprenticeship system and such process has provided opportunities for some youths to successfully prospect on some business ventures which have provided jobs for many Nigerians. Therefore the success of Entrepreneurship Education at informal level clearly shows that if it is formalized and made to be part of the curricula of tertiary education, Nigeria will be on the part to creating industrialists, business moguls and employers of labour.

Entrepreneurship education has succeeded in many developed countries and it has been adopted and applied in the educational institutions of many developing nations. With the right political will, planning and adequate funding, the programme will achieve its purpose. But for it to make the required impact in our economy, the Ministry of Education, and the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) should work together with all other relevant institutions and agencies to design new curricula on Entrepreneurship Education. Also, Government should create Institute of Entrepreneurship Education that would from time to time review the curricula and ensure standard in implementation and in providing financial and technical assistance to graduates of the programme. The institute could focus on four main areas:

·        Providing a strategic framework which will include the vision of Entrepreneurship Education.

·        Reviewing and redesigning Entrepreneurship Education curricula in line with our developmental needs.

·        Implementation of the programmes and providing technical assistance to Entrepreneurship Education graduates who want to go into some businesses.

·        Assessing and evaluating the success of the programme.

1.5             RESEARCH   HYPOTHESIS

This project is to answer the crucial question of what extent have students’ attitude been affected or influenced by entrepreneurship? and also to find out if entrepreneurship is really necessary in a country like Nigeria?

 Ho:  Institutions have a positive effect  on the students attitude towards entrepreneurship in the economy

H1: Institutions have a negative effect on the students’ attitude towards entrepreneurship in the economy

1.6        SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

This topic has been taken into consideration to know the role of tertiary institution in promoting entrepreneurship education in Nigeria. This is due to the fact that entrepreneurship has created job opportunities, contributed to the growth and development of the economy as a whole. The beauty is in the fact that the research work will be able to compensate earlier production on the topic and provide a background upon which further studies could be built in the future.

1.7     LIMITATION AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY

When dealing with this study, problems will definitely be present. Some of the problems affecting this study are, some of the students are not ready to go into or know more about entrepreneurship, research’s shows that entrepreneurship education in some institutions was largely infrequent and without depth or focus. Also the presence of ill-prepared learners, an inferior schooling system, teachers with insufficient motivation and knowledge to transfer the skills required for the modern world of work; an economy that is not conducive to job creation; affirmative action and others such as increased mechanisation by industry. Basically, the presence of good education is lacked, so this causes a huge problem in the economy. The focus of this study is on how institutions have affected student’s attitude towards entrepreneurship in Nigeria. The study helps to show the relative importance of education towards entrepreneurship. 

1.8   DATA SOURCES

The data set used for this study was obtained from Nigerian Institute of journalism Ogba research findings on core competencies in small scale business analysis. CORE COMPETENCES IN SMALL BUISNESSES; the business development project. Proceedings of internationalizing entrepreneurship education and training conference, write –ups from journals, newspapers and the internet, questioners, interviews etc. The data covers the period of  2005-2013.  And result of different graduating students between the periods of  2005-2013, it was established that NIJ was established in 1971 to cater for deficient manpower in journalism reporters and newspaper desk workers in early undergraduate era.          

The result obtained after interviewing graduating students of the institute of journalism, looking at their results in Entrepreneurship development and practices under the period mentioned in the project help in concluding whether creating an Entrepreneurship laboratory and centres in our higher institution is necessary and useful for development of individuals, corporate organizations and bodies that benefitted from their teaching and training across the country media houses.

1.9   DEFINITION OF TERMS

Entrepreneurship: Is a human activity development. it can also be said as the activities of an entrepreneur.

Enterprise: A small business unit. An organised business activities aimed specifically at growth and profit.

Entrepreneur: The owner of a small business unit or enterprise.  An individual who  initiates or finances new commercial enterprises.

Education: The imparting and acquiring of knowledge through teaching and learning at a school or university.

Entrepreneurship Education: as the process of developing entrepreneurial spirit through the development and application of relevant and entrepreneur-based educational curriculum. More importantly, it involves giving the recipient of education the understanding and capacity or the unique orientation, behaviour, skills and attribute to pursue entrepreneurial ventures.

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