ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to examine the entrepreneurial skills of business education on students’ capacity for enterprises development in federal universities in South- south Nigeria. Seven research questions and seven null hypotheses guided the study. The research adopted a descriptive survey design. The population for the study comprised 416 Business education students made up of 203 male and 213 female students. The population was manageable, hence census was adopted. The instrument for data collection were a 70-item researcher developed questionnaire titled: Entrepreneurial Skills of Business Education and Students’ Capacity for Enterprises Development Questionnaire (ESBESCEDQ). The instrument had a 4-point response scales of Very High Extent, High Extent, Low Extent, and Very Low Extent with 4, 3, 2, and 1 ratings respectively that addressed the research questions. The instrument was face validated by three experts: one from Business Education, one from Entrepreneurship from University of Uyo and one from measurement and evaluation from college of education, Michael Okpara university of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia state. The reliability of the instruments was determined using Cronbach alpha statistic which yielded, .83, .82, .84, .81, .83, .81, .84, .84, for the various sections of the instrument and overall coefficient index of .84. The data were collected by the researcher with the help of two research assistants who were trained for the purpose. Out of 416 copies of the instrument administered, 402 copies representing 96% were returned and used for data analysis. The Mean with standard deviations was used to answer the seven research questions raised for the study while t- test statistic was used to test the seven null hypotheses that guided the study at .05 level of significant. The results showed among others that students’ opportunity recognition skills, product distribution skills and human relation skills to a very high extent impact on the capacity of Business education students’ to develop business enterprises while book-keeping skills, office management skills, ICT skills and communication skills to a high extent impact on the capacity of Business education students’ to develop business enterprises. Sequel to the findings, it was concluded that business education graduates with the relevant entrepreneurial skills would provide the knowledge, understanding, and attitudes needed to run small businesses of their own and to perform effectively in the business world as a producer of goods and services. It was recommended among others that Government should employ business education lecturers that possess entrepreneurial skills who will in-return inculcate such skills to business education students.