Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intentions: Evidence from Nigerian Business and Engineering Students

Abstract

Unemployment, insecurity, and poverty are a few of the major obstacles preventing higher living conditions in Nigeria. Successive Nigerian governments have failed in their attempts to solve these issues. For these strategies to work, Nigerian higher institutions (NHIs) must sustain indigenous entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship education (EE) in these institutions has been the cornerstone of the recent National Education Policy. EE was primarily designed for business students. Recently, NHIs have witnessed the institutional-wide application of EE. This study empirically assessed the efficacy of EE on entrepreneurial intentions (EI) of business and engineering undergraduates. A survey of 988 randomly selected Lagos State University of Science and Technology business and engineering students was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire. The data generated were analyzed using descriptive, correlational, and regression statistics. The study revealed the high level of exposure of Nigerian undergraduates to EE and a significant positive relationship of 0.355 between EE and EI. In addition, the regression model revealed that EE accounted for a significant 12.5 percent of the total EI. Hence, the study recommends that NHIs continue to vigorously sustain the institutional-wide adoption of EE and modify the existing curricula to make the program more practical and entrepreneurship-oriented to equip Nigerian undergraduates with the requisite entrepreneurial skills and make them compete globally.